Israel will have to grapple on its own with the threat posed by Iran’s drive to attain nuclear weapons, Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Chairman Avigdor Liberman warned on Tuesday, speaking as the world watched a Russian-initiated proposal push off any likely US-led intervention against the Assad regime in Syria..
“We rely only on ourselves. At end of the day, from 1948 onward, no outsiders protected Israel. We dealt with all threats alone. We have no expectations or demands from the world,” the blunt-talking Liberman told Israel’s Channel 2 TV. Similarly, where Iran’s nuclear program was concerned, Israel “will have to deal with it on our own,” said Liberman, the former foreign minister who is No. 2 to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Knesset’s Likud-Beytenu alliance.
Kremlin sources have reportedly confirmed that Russia will supply Iran with five S-300 anti-aircraft missile batteries and a new nuclear reactor in Bushehr.
After calling off a transfer of five S-300 missile batteries to Iran three years ago, Russia is now interested in renewing the agreement and in setting up a civilian nuclear reactor for its long-time ally as part of a deal worth $800 million, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to meet Friday with Iranian President Hasan Rouhani in Kazakhstan, where the two leaders are expected to discuss the deal in further detail, the report said.
Rouhani on Tuesday stated that his country “will not give up one iota” of its nuclear program, despite recent hopes that the new president, widely considered a relative moderate, would cooperate with United Nationsinspectors on his country’s nuclear facilities.
A senior Russian lawmaker said that Russia could expand arms sales to Iran and revise the terms of US military transit to Afghanistan if Washington launched a strike on Syria.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has approved the transfer of S-300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran, according to the prestigious Russian daily newspaper Kommersant.
The newspaper reported on Wednesday that the Russian government will revive the transfer three years after it canceled the original transaction.
According to Kommersant, the Kremlin agreed to Tehran’s request to complete the transaction, which will net the Russian treasury $800 million.
In addition to the missile deal, Russia has also agreed to construct another nuclear reactor in Bushehr. According to the Kommersant report, the two sides are expected to finalize the details of the deal this coming Friday, when Putin is expected to meet his Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, in the central Asian republic of Kyrgyzstan.Kommersant reported on Wednesday that the Russians intend on supplying Iran with a less advanced version of the S-300 than originally thought.
The Russian-manufactured anti-aircraft batteries have been a source of concern to Israeli officials who fear that their enemies’ possession of them could have adverse strategic consequences.
Tense negotiations have begun on a proposed UN resolution that would put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control and end a diplomatic stalemate over a deadly August 21 poison gas attack, a French official said Wednesday.
The plan for Syria to relinquish its chemical weapons, initiated by Russia, appeared to ease the crisis over looming Western strikes against Bashar Assad’s regime in Damascus, only to open up new potential for impasse as Moscow rejected US and French demands for a binding UN resolution with “very severe consequences” for non-compliance.
The French official close to the president, who spoke on condition of anonymity because negotiations remained sensitive, said Russia objected not only to making the resolution militarily enforceable, but also to blaming the Aug. 21 attack on the Syrian government and demanding that those responsible be taken before an international criminal court.
Wary of falling into what the French foreign minister called “a trap,” Paris and Washington are pushing for a UN Security Council resolution to verify Syria’s disarmament. Russia, a close ally of Syrian leader Bashar Assad and the regime’s chief patron on the international stage, dismissed France’s proposal on Tuesday.
The diplomatic maneuvering threatened growing momentum toward a plan that would allow President Barack Obama to back away from military action. Domestic support for a strike is uncertain in the United States, even as Obama seeks congressional backing for action — and there has been little international appetite to join forces against Assad.
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