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Israel fury as Kerry heads to Iran talks in Geneva
[Al Ahram] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned John F. I was in Vietnam, you knowKerry Former Senator-for-Life from Massachussetts, self-defined war hero, speaker of French, owner of a lucky hat,conqueror of Cambodia, and current Secretary of State... Friday he was offering Iran the "deal of the century" as the US top diplomat headed to landmark talks in Geneva seeking a nuclear agreement. Netanyahu vowed that Israel would not be bound by any international agreement on Iran's nuclear programme and reserved the right to do whatever is necessary to defend itself -- a clear allusion to a pre-emptive military strike. Meeting with the US Secretary of State on the tarmac of Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, the Israeli leader, a fierce opponent of any let-up in sanctions, lashed out at the world powers' cautious rapprochement with Iran and denounced the proposed agreement being hammered out in Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... Kerry flew in from Amman for a brief stopover in Tel Aviv and his third meeting with Netanyahu in as many days, in a bid to soothe Israeli anger ahead of his arrival in Geneva. There he will hold a three-way meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who is chairing the talks. "Iran got the deal of the century and the international community got a bad deal, this is a very bad deal. Israel utterly rejects it," Netanyahu told news hounds. "Israel is not obliged by this agreement and Israel will do everything it needs to defend itself and the security of its people." Israel, which has the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, staunchly opposes any easing of sanctions on a country whose leaders in the past have denied the Holocaust and said the Jewish state should cease to exist. It views a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat and has consistently refused to rule out a pre-emptive military strike to prevent that from happening. "I understand that the Iranians are walking around very satisfied in Geneva, as well they should be, because they got everything and paid nothing. "They wanted relief of sanctions after years of a gruelling sanctions regime -- they got that -- they are paying nothing because they are not reducing in any way their nuclear enrichment capability," he said of the deal which has not yet been hammered out. Washington has made clear that Kerry's arrival in Geneva does not signal that there is a done deal with Iran. "In an effort to help narrow the differences in negotiations, Secretary Kerry will travel to Geneva, Switzerland today at the invitation of EU High Representative Ashton to hold a trilateral meeting with High Representative Ashton and Foreign Minister Zarif on the margins of the P5+1 negotiations," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement. Posted by: Fred 2013-11-09 |
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