Pentagon chief Carter in Israel seeks deeper military ties

Israel has been strongly critical of the agreement struck this week between its arch-foe Iran and six world powers that would see Tehran curb its nuclear programme in return for a gradual lifting of sanctions.

Kerry defended the deal in a round of interviews Sunday, appearing on all five Sunday news talk shows the same day the Obama administration formally submitted the agreement to Congress for a 60-day review. “I guess the question you have to ask yourself is, if this deal is supposed to make Israel and our Arab neighbors safer, why should we be compensated with anything”, Netanyahu said. Florida senator Marco Rubio, a strong performer in most polls regarding the 15-strong field, said he would reinstate USA sanctions on Iran that will be waived under the present deal.

“We have repeatedly offered to the Israeli leadership to hold these consultations, including the president to the prime minister on their last few calls, but they have made clear privately and publicly that they do not want to engage in this conversation at this juncture”, a senior USA official said.

“This is a good deal”, Carter said.

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz told Israeli news outlets, “There is an enormous difference between a deal that merely delays Iran’s development of a nuclear arsenal for a one year period and a deal that prevents Iran from ever developing a nuclear arsenal”.

Barack Obama has promised to exercise his presidential veto if Congress rejects the deal.

“You heard ‘Death to Israel, ‘ ‘Death to the U.S.’ You could hear it. The whole nation was shaken by these slogans”.

“Questioning this state’s (Israel’s) right to existence is something that we Germans cannot accept”, he said, adding that now Berlin and Tehran can re-establish closer ties it was necessary to talk about human rights.

“I hope it’s decided on the merits of the arguments rather than the volume of the expenditures of the outside groups”, said California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I think that this is a repeat of the mistake of North Korea”, Netanyahu said.

“If someone thought that the extraordinary concessions to Iran would lead to a change in its policy, they received an unequivocal answer over the weekend in Iranian ruler Khamenei’s aggressive and contrary speech, ” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commented on Sunday.

Carter is expected to meet with King Salman while in Saudi Arabia and with the king’s son and defence minister, Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This means the provisions of the agreement are binding on all signatories to the deal, including Iran as well as all other United Nations members. But, in fact, Iran actually gets both thing.

Germany’s DIHK chambers of trade and commerce has forecast that German exports could double to about 5 billion euros within just two years and companies like Volkswagen and Siemens, as well as thousands of smaller family-owned firms are eager to take back their dominant role in shipments to Iran.