America
Obama slams Netanyahu's stand on Iran ahead of Congressional speech
The US Congress, President Barack Obama slammed
his approach on a nuclear deal with Iran even as the Israeli prime
minister struck a conciliatory note.
Pointing to the 2013 interim
deal with Iran, Obama told Reuters news agency on Monday that
Netanyahu, who has come to Washington at the invitation of Republican
speaker John Boehner in the face of White House opposition, has been
wrong before.
"Netanyahu made all sorts of claims. This was going
to be a terrible deal. This was going to result in Iran getting $50
billion worth of relief. Iran would not abide by the agreement. None of
that has come true," he said.
The White House has sought to paint
Obama's refusal to meet Netanyahu two weeks before the Israeli election
as a principled stand so as not to appear to take sides.
Netanyahu,
meanwhile, reaffirmed that the US-Israeli relationship remains strong
and the two nations "will weather this current disagreement" over his
speech.
"My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to
Obama or the esteemed office that he holds - I have great respect for
both," he said in his address to the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee annual policy conference.
"Our friendship will weather
the current disagreement as well, to grow even stronger in the future -
because we share the same dreams... because the values that unite us are
much stronger than the differences that divide us," he said.
Answering
critics who have accused Netanyahu of politicising the issue of Iranian
nuclear talks, the prime minister said his Tuesday speech is "not
intended to inject Israel into the American partisan debate".
Netanyahu
instead framed his Tuesday address as part of a "moral obligation" to
sound the alarm on Iran, which he warned has "vowed to annihilate
Israel, and if it develops nuclear weapons, it can achieve that goal".
"As
prime minister of Israel, I have a moral obligation to speak up in the
face of these threats while there is time to avert them," he said.
(Arun Kumar can be contacted at [email protected])