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Obama, in Sderot: World must prevent Iran from obtaining nukes
Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama visited the rocket-battered southern town of Sderot on Wednesday, where he said that the entire world must act to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions. "A nuclear Iran would pose a grave threat and the world must prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Obama stated. The Illinois senator also warned that a situation in which Iran had achieved this capability would be "game-changing." "Not just in the Middle East, but around the world," he added. "Whatever remains of our Non-Proliferation Treaty would begin to disintegrate." Obama vowed that as president he would not force Israel into making concessions that would put the country in danger for the sake of the peace process. "I don't think that Ms. Livni or Mr. Barak or Bibi [Opposition leader Benjamin] Netanyahu or the others, President Peres, when they spoke to me today got any sense that I would be pressuring them to accept any kinds of concession that would put their security at stake," he said in answer to a question from a journalist. Later in the day he meet with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for dinner, at which point he told reporters that he had found among the Palestinians "a strong sense that progress is being made and honest conversations are taking place" in the peace talks. "Indeed, that's right," answered Olmert, who has pursued several diplomatic initiatives even as a corruption probe threatens to force him from office. At the Sderot press conference, Obama said that Israel had every right to defend itself against attacks on its civilians, referring to the Qassam rockets that plagued the southern town and neighboring communities until a recent cease-fire with Gaza's Hamas rulers. "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I would do everything in power to stop that, and would expect Israelis to do the same thing," he said. In Gaza, Hamas official Fawzi Barhoum called Obama's remarks part of the American policy of bias toward Israel and giving legitimacy to Israeli crimes against our people. The presidential hopeful was accompanied on his Sderot stop by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. Posted by: Fred 2008-07-24 |
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