Netanyahu urges "military sanctions" threat against Iran

Iran's foreign minister said on Wednesday he was optimistic an agreement could be reached with six world powers on the country's disputed nuclear program.    
                                      
"Very confident," Ali Akbar Salehi told Reuters when asked on the sidelines of a U.N. conference in Vienna how confident he was of a positive outcome.    
                                 
On another note, six world powers did not offer to suspend oil or financial sanctions during talks with Iran on its nuclear program in the Kazakh city of Almaty, a senior US administration official said on Wednesday.                                                                              

The six powers - France, Germany, the United States, china Russia and Britain - offered at the talks to lift some sanctions if Iran scaled back nuclear activity the west fears could be used to build bombs.                                            

Meanwhile, Iran said nuclear talks with world powers were a "positive step", after two days of negotiations that ended in Almaty on Wednesday.  
                                 
In a statement after the Feb. 26-27 talks, Iran said expert level talks between the two sides would be held in Istanbul on March 18 and another round of political negotiations on April 5-6.                                

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili suggested Iran could discuss its production of nuclear fuel enriched to a fissile concentration of 20 percent - which greatly worries the West - but appeared to rule out closing the underground Fordow enrichment plant.                                                                             

This as, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that nuclear talks had been useful and said a serious engagement by Iran could lead to a longer-term, comprehensive agreement.                                                           

Kerry, who was in Paris meeting the French president and his counterpart Laurent Fabius during a tour of Europe, repeated that Washington was ready to hold bilateral talks with Iran.                           

"Iran knows what it needs to do, the president has made clear his determination to implement his policy that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon," he added.
                      
For his part, the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the international community to threaten Iran with "military sanctions", saying economic measures are failing to curb Tehran's nuclear drive.                                    

"I believe it is incumbent upon the international community to intensify the sanctions and clarify that if Iran continues its program, there will be military sanctions," Netanyahu said, without specifying what specific measures he envisages, in a statement released by the prime minister's office.            

"I don't think there are any other means that will make Iran heed the international community's demands," he said, in his first remarks on the issue after two days of nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers in the Kazakh city of Almaty.    


REUTERS