Headlines
Israeli PM wants world to seek 'better' Iran n-deal
Jerusalem, April 1
Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday urged the international community to
harden its stance on a nuclear deal with Iran and insist on a "better
deal" that would prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons.
"The
concessions offered to Iran in Lausanne would ensure a bad deal that
would endanger Israel, the Middle East and the peace of the world,"
Netanyahu said on the ongoing negotiations in Switzerland between six
major world powers and Iran.
The nuclear talks failed to meet the
March 31 deadline for a deal but the negotiations continued in Lausanne
on Wednesday in an attempt to reach a preliminary agreement.
"Now
is the time for the international community to insist on a better
deal," Xinhua news agency quoted Netanyahu as saying in a broadcast
statement, before entering a meeting in Jerusalem with Speaker of the US
House of Representatives, John Boehner, a prominent critic of President
Barack Obama's policy on Iran.
According to hardliner Netanyahu,
who has been a strong opponent of the deal, "Iran's insistence on
keeping underground nuclear facilities, advanced centrifuges and a heavy
water reactor" shows that the Islamic republic's nuclear programme is
not for peaceful purposes only.
Netanyahu also quoted an Iranian general, who on Tuesday said that "Israel's destruction is non-negotiable".
"Evidently
giving Iran's murderous regime a clear path to the bomb is negotiable,"
noted the Israeli prime minister. "This is unconscionable."
"Iran
must stop its aggression in the region, stop its terrorism throughout
the world and stop its threats to annihilate Israel. That should be
non-negotiable and that's the deal that the world powers must insist
upon," he charged.
Iran and the world powers are likely to issue a
joint statement later on Wednesday to wrap up the Lausanne nuclear
talks, according to Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi.
Progress
in recent talks will be outlined in the statement, which may take the
form of a joint plan of action, Araqchi said in a live broadcast on
state IRIB TV.