JERUSALEM: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden set to urge Israel to leave Iran alone and allow sanctions to be pursued against Tehran's nuclear threat

Record ID: 401199

  • Title: JERUSALEM: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden set to urge Israel to leave Iran alone and allow sanctions to be pursued against Tehran's nuclear threat
  • Date: 10th March 2010
  • Summary: JERUSALEM (MARCH 9, 2010) (REUTERS POOL) BIDEN AND ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU WALKING TOWARDS JOURNALISTS, BIDEN SIGNING NETANYAHU'S GUEST BOOK CLOSE OF NETANYAHU/ WIDE OF BIDEN SIGNING GUEST BOOK CLOSE OF BIDEN TWO LEADERS SHAKING HANDS, WALKING AWAY
  • Embargoed: 25th March 2010 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVABD88LYJBC3XB6BF7JBTAI43I2
  • Story Text: U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is expected to caution Israel not to attack Iran during a fact-finding mission to the Middle East.
    On Tuesday (March 9) he met Israeli President Shimon Peres and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the start of a four day visit to the Jewish state and the Palestinian territories.
    Israeli political sources say they expect Biden to make clear U.S. President Barack Obama wants no strike on Iran while Washington seeks to curb Tehran's nuclear threat by means of sanctions.
    Biden met both Israeli leaders in Jerusalem before visiting Mount Herzl cemetery and Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial site.
    He also expressed hope that peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians can begin again.
    "I think we are at a moment of real opportunity," Biden said during his meeting with Peres.
    "The interests of both the Palestinians and the Israeli people, if everyone would just step back and take a deep breath, are actually very much more in line than they are in opposition," he said.
    Biden will be briefed on indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks spearheaded by Obama's special envoy George Mitchell.
    U.S.-Israeli tensions flared over Obama's early push for a complete freeze to Jewish settlement in the West Bank, where Palestinians seek statehood as part of a future peace accord.
    It is on Iran Biden is expected to set out Washington's demands on Israel not to launch any attack on Iran.
    "Since our administration has come to power, I would point out that Iran is more isolated -- internally, externally -- has fewer friends in the world," Biden said.
    Israel's President Shimon Peres called on Washington to "surround Iran with an envelope of self-defence" to protect Israel against Tehran's "missiles and nuclear threat".
    "Nobody knows exactly what they are doing," Peres said of Iran, which has denied it intends to make nuclear weapons.
    Netanyahu, who Biden met just after Peres, said on Monday (March 8) that Iran is the most important mutual security challenge facing Israel and the United States.
    Israel, which is believed to have the region's only atomic arsenal, bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 and, in 2007, launched a similar sortie against Syria. But many analysts believe its forces are too small to deliver more than disruptive strikes against Iran's distant, numerous and fortified sites.
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