According to reports this morning, the main goal of the P5+1 will probably be an Iranian agreement to shut down the higher-grade uranium enrichment programme that it launched in 2010. Iran has since expanded the enrichment process at an underground facility at Fordo, outside the northern city of Qom. A senior Western official quoted by Reuters said that the six powers – led by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton – would make Iran “a detailed proposal that will include confidence-building measures”. However, no details were given on what those measures might be.

In related news, on Tuesday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Yukiya Amano said an agreement with Iran over nuclear inspections was expected “quite soon” following his recent talks in Tehran. He said the deal could increase Tehran’s co-operation with IAEA investigations into its atomic activity. He added that he had raised the issue of access to the Parchin military site – an IAEA priority in its inquiry – and that this would be addressed as part of the agreement’s implementation.

Numerous Israeli leaders have voiced their scepticism over the deal. In an interview with Army Radio this morning Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that although he does not consider world leaders naive on Iran, “they [Iran] seek to achieve progress and therefore are willing to compromise.” Repeating a phrase used previously by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Barak said that a nuclear-armed Iran is “not a matter of days or weeks, but not a matter of years either.” He added that “A nuclear Iran is insufferable,” and that actions regarding Israel’s security would be decided by its government.

The EU, the US and the UN have all imposed sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme.

Gould’s comments come as The P5+1, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, meet Iran for talks today in Baghdad over its contentious nuclear programme.

Gould added in the interview that now is not the time for an attack on Iran, and that the UK would not support such a move if it were carried out. He stressed that the parallel track of sanctions and negotiations are the best way to solve the Iran nuclear crisis.

The UK and Israel enjoy close cooperation on the issue and the British government has emphasised in the past that all options should remain on the table.

In other news, yesterday evening Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman met with Foreign Secretary William Hague in London. At the meeting the two ministers discussed bilateral issues, increasing co-operation between the two states, the situation in the Middle East and the upcoming negotiations in Baghdad concerning Iran’s nuclear programme.

According to media reports this morning, Lieberman said that even though Iran is attempting to create a pleasant and calm atmosphere for talks, its desire remains to become a nuclear weapons state. “Sanctions on Iran have had an influence, but so far it has been insufficient to bring about real change,” said Lieberman. The Foreign Minister also said it was important to point out Iran’s negative influence on other Middle East conflicts.

During his current UK trip, Lieberman is also scheduled to meet with Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, Education Secretary Michael Gove and National Security Adviser Sir Kim Daroch.

Top candidates include former Arab League chief Amr Moussa, Islamist Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, Freedom and Justice Party chairman Mohamed Morsi and former Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq.

If no candidate gets an absolute majority, as is expected, the top two candidates would compete in a runoff on June 16 and 17 and will take office before 1 July. Voting will last two days and will end on 24 May. Preliminary election results will be announced at a press conference next Monday. Final election results will be announced on 21 June. The transfer of power to elected civilian authorities is expected to be held no later than 30 June.

During the Egyptian presidential campaign Israel became a popular target of criticism, as candidates played on popular antipathy in Egypt toward its neighbour. One Islamist candidate often referred to Israel as the “Zionist entity” and the “enemy” and a leftist candidate pledged to support the Palestinian resistance against Israel. “Of course Israel is an enemy. It occupied land, it threatened our security. It is an entity that has 200 nuclear warheads,” Islamist candidate Aboul Fotouh said in a TV debate when asked about Israel. Seeking to embarrass his main opponent, Abol Fotouh pressed former Arab League chief Amr Moussa on whether he too classed Israel an enemy. Moussa chose the term “adversary.”

None of the candidates have said they want to revoke the peace treaty with Israel, but they have repeatedly warned in rallies and debates that it ought to be reviewed.

Israeli leaders are continuing to press for a robust negotiating stance. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his position yesterday that world powers should make “clear and unequivocal demands” that Iran stop all of its nuclear enrichment activity.
 
“Iran wants to destroy Israel and it is developing nuclear weapons to fulfill that goal,” Netanyahu said at a conference for civil servants in Jerusalem. “Against this malicious intention, leading world powers need to display determination and not weakness. They should not make any concessions to Iran.”

The visit has led to some controversy within the British Jewish community. The Jewish National Fund (JNF), one of the main Zionist charities in the UK, will be hosting an open event for community members with Lieberman today. However a number of Jewish groups who object to Lieberman’s hawkish political stance have voiced their objections to his invitation.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the committee hearings would enable the recently expanded government to carry out the first clause of its coalition agreement. “Two weeks ago we were in this hall, Shaul Mofaz and I, to announce the establishment of the broad-based unity government,” he said. “The first clause in the unity deal was to bring about an alternative to the Tal Law. Vice Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz described yesterday’s meeting was a “historic moment as well as an opportunity to change the agenda in the State of Israel.”

The two largest ultra-Orthodox parties, the Sephardi Shas party and the Ashkenazi United Torah Judaism, have refused to send representatives as they do not want to be seen as cooperating with the government on an issue that their voters deeply oppose. Despite their absence prominent Israeli lawyer Jacob Weinroth, who is serving on the committee, is widely considered to be the ultra-Orthodox community’s unofficial representative.

Equally, Arab MKs and the Higher Arab Monitoring Committee said they were not interested in joining the committee, although Netanyahu said one of the important elements of the panel’s work is to include both Jews and Arabs without setting one group against the other. He also said it was important to implement any changes gradually. According to reports in the Israeli press, Arab officials plan to conduct an unofficial dialogue with the panel, and committee chairman MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) has said he expects that an Arab member will eventually join the panel.

The panel is expected to complete its deliberations, which will take place three times a week, by 28 June, and to finish drafting the alternative to the Tal Law by 25 July.

The P5+1 are holding a second round of talks with Iran in Baghdad on Wednesday. Both Israel and the US have maintained a strong line in public over the last few weeks that Iran must cease all uranium enrichment activities, as mandated by UN resolutions. G8 countries also reiterated their determination to maintain pressure on Iran in a statement over the weekend. However there is speculation that a compromise deal would allow Iran to continue enriching uranium to 3.5%, which is enough for to create fuel for power generation but not for nuclear weapons. Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak suggested a few weeks ago that Israel might be willing to accept such a compromise. However, Benjamin Netanyahu, speaking in the Czech Republic last Friday, warned of Iranian deception, saying, “It looks as though they see the talks as another opportunity to delay and deceive and buy time, pretty much as North Korea did for many years.”

Iran has a track record of appearing to compromise, only to later back out of a deal. A proposal to remove enriched uranium from Iran collapsed in 2009 when Iran tried to change the terms of the deal after it had been agreed. Such tactics have been used successfully to divide the international community and to buy time.

The news is likely to be viewed with considerable scepticism within the Palestinian territories and beyond, after the two sides have failed to implement a long series of apparent agreements to establish a unity government and hold elections. The latest announcement comes only three and a half months after a reconciliation agreement was signed in Doha, Qatar, by leaders of the two factions. Since then, however, the implementation of the deal has stalled, primarily due to resistance within Hamas to any compromise on the control over the Gaza Strip. The new agreement is supposed to enable registration of new voters in Gaza, a process blocked by Hamas in recent years.

The Cairo deal comes days after PA President Mahmoud Abbas announced a reshuffling of the Palestinian Authority cabinet last week, which kept Salam Fayyad in place as prime minister. The new cabinet comprises primarily of technocrats. Hamas, meanwhile, is in the midst of secret internal elections that stretch over several months, in which Khaled Meshaal, the external head of the political bureau, is believed to have lost ground to more hard line factions within the Gaza Strip.

The Iranian Fars News Agency reported that General Firouzabadi made his threat during a speech in Tehran. He also repeated Iran’s commitment to supporting Palestinians opposed to Israel’s existence.

Iranian leaders have a long record of threatening Israel existence. Former Spanish Prime Miniser Jose Maria Aznar, in a meeting held by the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs last week, said that in a private discussion in October of 2000, “Ali Khamenei told me that Israel must be burned to the ground and made to disappear from the face of the Earth.” Aznar clarified that the Iranian leader “Meant physical termination through military force.”

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad caused international uproar in 2005 when he said that Israel should be “removed from the page of time”, and has been widely condemned for his repeated denial of the Holocaust.

“The level of security cooperation between the United States and Israel has never been stronger,” Panetta said.  “I was pleased to inform Minister Barak that the president supports Israel’s Iron Dome system and directed me to fill the $70 million in assistance for Iron Dome that Minister Barak indicated to me Israel needs this fiscal year.”

“My goal is to ensure Israel has the funding it needs each year to produce these batteries that can protect its citizens,” said Panetta. “This is part of our rock solid commitment to Israel’s security and comes on top of approximately $3 billion in annual security assistance for Israel, ”Panetta added.

Barak, in a statement, said he “greatly appreciated” the announcement, adding that “This additional funding for the Iron Dome system comes at a crucial time for the Israeli people.”

Barak is in Washington to discuss with Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton efforts to keep Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

On Iran’s nuclear programme, in an interview with CNN, Barak indicated that while Israel trusted the “United States and the other members of the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany),” it expected them “to set the bar at a place where it becomes clear that at least, in however long it takes to reach there, block Iran from turning militarily nuclear.”

“If the world community set the threshold that even if fully accepted, let alone only partially accepted by the Iranians, to keep moving toward nuclear military programme, that’s ridiculous, a delusion,” the defence minister added.

Barak also referred to an Israeli fear of a nuclear ‘catastrophe’ taking place amid Tehran’s attempt to gain nuclear weapons capability, saying: “It’s not about catastrophe, it’s about a real challenge to the whole world, not just to Israel. I think a nuclear Iran will change the whole landscape of the Middle East. We have to do something to block it from happening. Be this the sanctions or the negotiations or [anything] else,” he added.

Barak’s comments come ahead of next week’s round of P5+1 talks, due to take place in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.