Jerusalem (AFP) – {Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday he has a “profound disagreement” with President Barack Obama over efforts by the US and world powers to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.}<\/p>\n
However, he said he is still trying to minimise the impact of the dispute on his country’s relations with the United States.<\/p>\n
“We do have today a profound disagreement with the United States administration and the rest of the P5+1 over the offer that has been made to Iran,” Netanyahu’s office quoted him as saying.<\/p>\n
Iran and Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany have been seeking a comprehensive accord that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb in return for an easing of economic sanctions.<\/p>\n
In his statement, Netanyahu said what the P5+1 was offering in the negotiations “would enable Iran to threaten Israel’s survival.”<\/p>\n
“This is a regime, Iran, that is openly committed to Israel’s destruction,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It would be able, under this deal, to break out to a nuclear weapon in a short time, and within a few years, to have the industrial capability to produce many nuclear bombs for the goal of our destruction.”<\/p>\n
Obama has refused to meet Netanyahu during his trip to Washington next month, saying diplomatic protocol forbade him from doing so, as the Israeli leader is fighting for re-election on March 17.<\/p>\n
“This is not a personal disagreement between President Obama and me. I deeply appreciate all that he has done for Israel in many fields,” said Netanyahu.<\/p>\n
“Equally, I know that the president appreciates my responsibility, my foremost responsibility, to protect and defend the security of Israel.<\/p>\n
“I am going to the United States not because I seek a confrontation with the president, but because I must fulfil my obligation to speak up on a matter that affects the very survival of my country.<\/p>\n
“I intend to speak about this issue before the March 24th deadline and I intend to speak in the US Congress because Congress might have an important role on a nuclear deal with Iran.”<\/p>\n
Some lawmakers are threatening to seek new sanctions on Tehran.<\/p>\n
Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb and says its nuclear programme is for peaceful energy purposes only.<\/p>\n
President Hassan Rouhani said Tuesday that world powers must “seize the opportunity” of a nuclear deal, insisting Tehran had taken the “necessary steps” for an accord.<\/p>\n
Two deadlines for a permanent agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme have already been missed, requiring the talks to be extended.<\/p>\n
Negotiators are now working toward the political outline of a deal by March 31, with the cut-off point for the technical details of a comprehensive accord by June 30.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jerusalem (AFP) – {Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted Tuesday he has a “profound disagreement” with President Barack Obama over efforts by the US and world powers to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.} However, he said he is still trying to minimise the impact of the dispute on his country’s relations with the United States. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000056183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[101],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-18590","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-internationl","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000056183,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton18590.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18590","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18590"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18590\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000056183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18590"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18590"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18590"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=18590"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=18590"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}