http://www.politico.com/blogs/politico-live/2013/10/netanyahu-were-not-gullible-174382.html?hp=r7 By TARINI PARTI |
10/6/13 11:09 AM EDT
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is calling for a complete dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons, making it clear that he doesn’t trust Iran’s new president.
Netanyahu said he doesn't want any minor concessions. "We're not gullible. We're not fools," he said in an interview aired Sunday on on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“The first step is I'll say, ‘No first steps. Full program.’ Just the way with Syria. You don't go and say to [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, ‘Well I don't know, send me some fancy-speaking diplomat to the U.N. to say nice things and call some, I don't know, and tweet in New York.’ You wouldn't say that. You'd say, ‘All right. Talk is fine. Here's what we want: complete dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons program,” Netanyahu said.
“That's what I would say to Iran. It's not that I wouldn't talk to them. I'd talk to them and I'd be very clear and very tough. I would tell them, ‘Here's the package. If you don't adopt the package, we'll increase the sanctions.’ And if we increase the sanctions, they'll collapse and they'll choose. Choose. But it's the whole package. Dismantle your program fully, no enrichment capacity left.”
Netanyahu also said Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s recent speech at the United Nations was hypocritical, calling it “double talk” and “sugar talk.”
“What message of peace? Look at the tweets. He's tweeting here, but he doesn't allow the Iranian people to tweet over there in Iran. He's saying all these nice things about Iranian democracy. They are executing people by the hundreds, jailing them by the thousands, any dissident.”
Netanyahu said that he thinks he and President Barack Obama have the same goal when it comes Iran.
"We talked about that. He spoke about his determination to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. He also said that Iran's conciliatory work should be met by meaningful action," he said.
