In Washington DC Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon reiterated the close ties Israel has with the United States while expressing reservations about a potential nuclear deal between the West and Iran saying, “we are making our opinions known.”
“The Iranian question concerns us,” Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon acknowledged, shortly after meeting here with US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. “The question of whether there will be an agreement and what that agreement is concerns us, and I spoke with them about this.”
When asked about a potential deal that would leave Iran with its centrifuges intact, Ya’alon responded:
“[W]e have said along the way that sometimes it is better that there is no deal rather than a bad deal. “
“The question is what we are talking about – if we are talking about a number of centrifuges, why do we need to be talking about centrifuges at all? Are they talking about other aspects of the Iranian military nuclear project, such as missile technology which can carry a nuclear warhead? And what about other topics that lie outside the nuclear project, like terror?”
When asked directly if his arguments had swayed American officials, Ya’alon replied, “we still haven’t concluded the visit, but it is an opportunity to express our position and our thoughts on any number of topics including those that are still being debated.” Ya’alon further stated, “we must not forget that the United States is really the State of Israel’s most important strategic ally.”
The Jerusalem Post reported that while in Washington, Ya’alon also slammed Turkey for sponsoring “terror against Israel.”
Ya’alon’s misgivings echo those expressed by intelligence minister Yuval Steinitz in an op-ed that appeared in The New York Times earlier this week.
[Photo: Reuters / YouTube ]