News
Netanyahu urges UK caution over renewing Iran diplomatic ties
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conducted an interview with the Financial Times in which he said that Iran must stop calling for the destruction of Israel before the UK moves to restore diplomatic relations with Iran.
Earlier this week, Foreign Secretary William Hague announced that tentative steps are being taken towards the possible renewal of diplomatic ties with Iran and that a non-resident charges d’affaires will oversee the process of rebuilding relations. However, Hague emphasised that progress would depend on “substantial change” from Tehran. Netanyahu suggested that with “Iran… calling for the annihilation of the Jewish state… It seems sensible that Britain would say, ‘Before we re-establish diplomatic relations, abandon this.’”
Netanyahu’s interview is one of several which he is conducting with key European media ahead of talks scheduled next week in Geneva between Iranian officials and representatives of the P5+1 forum (United States, UK, China, Russia, France and Germany). There is speculation that Iran will suggest some curbs to its nuclear development in exchange for a loosening of international sanctions. In the Financial Times, Netanyahu warned of “cosmetic concessions” from Iran and said “No deal is better than a bad deal, and a bad deal would be a partial agreement which lifts sanctions off Iran and leaves them with the ability to… produce nuclear weapons.” He urged the international community to maintain sanctions, saying “Don’t give up now, finish the job, let it take effect,” emphasising that “Iran should not have centrifuges; it should not have plutonium plants.”
Netanyahu rejected the notion that his scepticism regarding Iranian President Rouhani’s overtures towards the West, risks leaving Israel isolated. He commented, “Every Arab country shares my exact position, except for one: Syria.” Israel’s Prime Minister then warned that the hostility of the Iranian regime is confined not only towards Israel and the United States, but that “there is also a middle-sized Satan, which is Europe and Britain.”