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Netanyahu: Rouhani UN speech was cynical, masks real nuclear intentions
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticised as cynical a speech delivered to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani last night in New York.
Repeating the thrust of media interviews which he conducted last week, Rouhani said that “Iran’s nuclear programme” will “pursue exclusively peaceful purposes.” He indicated a desire to enter a dialogue with the international community, saying he is prepared to “manage differences” in direct talks with the United States.
Shortly after Rouhani’s address Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a statement labelling Rouhani’s address “cynical and full of hypocrisy.” Netanyahu said, Rouhani had evoked human rights and condemned terrorism when Iran is responsible for terrorist attacks across the world and is “participating in the slaughter of innocent civilians in Syria.” Netanyahu said that Rouhani’s talk of peaceful nuclear power contradicted evidence from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran’s programme has military dimensions.
Netanyahu commented that “Israel would welcome a genuine diplomatic solution” but that “we will not be fooled by half-measures that merely provide a smokescreen” for continued nuclear development. He noted that Rouhani’s speech included “no realistic offer to halt Iran’s nuclear program,” adding that Rouhani planned “to talk, and buy time, in order to advance Iran’s capacity to attain nuclear weapons.”
Netanyahu himself will address the UN General Assembly next week. His speech is expected to draw heavily on a comparison between Iran and North Korea, which initially agreed to halt its nuclear programme, before carrying out its first nuclear test just a year later. Israel’s Minister for International Relations Yuval Steinitz emphasised the theme during a meeting yesterday with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Referring to Ban’s South Korean citizenship, Steinitz commented “You understand better than anyone the disastrous consequences of the agreements based on gestures and illusions.”