Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu expressed his disappointment on Tuesday over the way the negotiations between world powers and Iran, over its disputed nuclear program, were going.
Speaking at the annual conference of the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu said, “Not only should the sanctions on Iran be increased, the demands for which the sanctions were imposed must be increased and it must be insisted that Iran meets these requirements in full.”
He added, “Iran should stop all enrichment of nuclear material, it should remove all the material that has been enriched up to now and it should shut down the underground nuclear facility in Qom. Only an explicit Iranian commitment to realize all three of these requirements and ensuring their implementation can stop the Iranian nuclear program. This should be the target of the negotiations, but I say with regret that this is not what is demanded from Iran today.”
“It was expected that the world powers demand that Iran stop all enrichment, in light of Iran’s continuing violations and given that they enrich up to 20% today, but instead the demands are being watered down,” said the Prime Minister. “In the previous round of negotiations they were asked to stop the 3.5% enrichment, but that’s not what’s happening now. Now they do not even insist that Iran stop all enrichment.”
Netanyahu stressed, “On the one hand it is good that heavy economic sanctions are placed on Iran, it’s a positive thing, it’s important, we have called for it, and I say with satisfaction that this pressure is being exerted on Iran. But on the other hand, the sanctions must be accompanied by the requirements that I mentioned, and that will stop Iran’s nuclear program. It is very much possible that the Iranians will temporarily stop the enrichment of 20%, but that’s not enough. The real test will be if Iran agrees to cease all enrichment, to remove all the enriched material and dismantle the underground nuclear facility in Qom.”
In his speech Netanyahu also addressed the problem of illegal infiltration into Israel and said, “There is a threat that could threaten the future of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. That threat is the breaching of our borders by illegal infiltrators. Already at the beginning of the government’s term we started to deal with this problem. In 2009, when this government started working, there was still no fence, not the beginning of a fence, no budget for a fence and no agreement was reached on the need to build a fence. Some said it’s not effective, that it does not stop the problem, that it’s expensive, that it’s unnecessary. When I insisted, they said ‘Well, let’s build two sections.’ I suggested otherwise.
“Other countries have lost control over their borders with prices that they cannot appreciate fully, but we know we cannot afford this,” added Netanyahu. “We decided within a year of establishing the government to put up the fence, to budget for the fence, and to complete the fence from Gaza to Eilat. This fence will be completed within a few months. I go down there every few months.
“My policy on illegal labor infiltrators is clear – to stop the entry of infiltrators through the fence while getting all the infiltrators who are in the country out,” said the Prime Minister. “We’ll start deporting the Southern Sudanese infiltrators subject to court approval, and I hope we get that approval in the coming days. Then we will proceed to other groups.”
