French Leader Assures Israel He Will Keep Pressure on Iran
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Version 0 of 1. JERUSALEM — As France and other world powers prepared to resume talks with Iran this week on its disputed nuclear program, the French president, François Hollande, arrived in Israel on Sunday for a three-day visit and was warmly embraced by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been conducting a lonely campaign against a deal he calls “bad” and “dangerous.” At a red-carpet welcoming ceremony at Ben-Gurion International Airport, Mr. Netanyahu thanked Mr. Hollande for his “resolute stance” on both Syria and Iran, and Mr. Hollande assured Israel that France “will not tolerate nuclear proliferation.” He pledged to keep up the pressure on Iran until it was clear that Iran had given up its quest for nuclear weapons, and declared in Hebrew, “I will always remain a friend of Israel.” Talks in Geneva on Nov. 9 between Iran and six world powers — France, the United States, Germany, Britain, Russia and China — failed to produce an agreement to freeze Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for an easing of international financial sanctions. Western powers fear that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, although Tehran insists that its program is for civilian purposes only. Israel views a nuclear-powered Iran as an existential threat. The talks broke down in part because France said the proposed deal would do too little to curb Iran’s uranium enrichment or stop the development of a nuclear reactor capable of producing plutonium. But at a joint news conference later in Jerusalem, Mr. Hollande emphasized that negotiations were always preferable to military force. On his first visit to Israel as head of state, Mr. Hollande was accompanied by his partner, Valérie Trierweiler, and a large delegation of government ministers, including his foreign minister, as well as businessmen. On Monday, he was scheduled to meet with the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, in the West Bank city of Ramallah as part of an effort to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. He was also expected to address the Israeli Parliament. |