NOVANEWS
Amidror visited London this week to discuss Iran, ahead of the second round of talks between the so-called Group 5+1 including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and Germany and the Islamic Republic of Iran to be held in Baghdad in three weeks.
The regime’s authority was assured by British officials that the representatives of the G5+1 were “not naïve” as far as the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program is concerned.
The UK official said, however, that “there was a possibility Iran might respond positively to Western demands over its nuclear program”.
Amidror met his British counterpart Sir Kim Darroch, Foreign Secretary William Hague and senior Defense Ministry and intelligence officials in London.
“There were very intense discussions on Iran,” Matthew Gould, Britain’s ambassador to Israel, told Haaretz daily after taking part in the talks.
“We compared notes about the negotiations approach,
about how we continue to tighten sanctions and about the analysis of the progress of the Iranian nuclear program. The level of cooperation between the two countries is very high”, Gould added.
Amidror stressed in all the meetings Israel’s fear that the West would make too many concessions in its eagerness to strike an agreement. Israel is particularly worried that some of the sanctions imposed on Iran might be lifted.
This comes as Iran as an active member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a member to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has time and again stressed its peaceful nature of its nuclear program, and various inspections by the IAEA have endorsed non-diversion of the activities by Iran.
“We are very clear, we are absolutely not naive about Iran’s intentions and about Iran’s negotiation tactics,” said Gould.
“The people in London who deal with this dossier have been dealing with Iran for years and years. Our representative in the talks is Jeffrey Adams who was our ambassador to Tehran. There is no naiveté in our approach to these talks.”
Trying to calm Israeli fears, Gould said: “Iran will not get something for nothing. We will not be lifting sanctions simply because the atmosphere of the talks is constructive. Iran needs to come to the table with concrete proposals for how it can rebuild the trust of the international community. We will judge Iran by its actions and take our decisions accordingly. People who are worried that we are going to get carried away with a kind of negotiating warmth and that suddenly we will dismantle the sanctions regime don’t need to worry.”
The ambassador added that despite Israeli skepticism, the negotiations route must be fully explored. “We all agree that a negotiated peaceful solution to this is better than the alternative,” he said.
