US: Raisi election unlikely to change nuke talks
‘We’re intent on negotiating for mutual compliance’
WASHINGTON – Iran’s supreme leader determines Tehran’s policy on important issues, US State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said on Monday, signaling that the election to the presidency of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi won’t change the dynamics of the talks on the nuclear issues between Iran and the world powers in Vienna.
“Iran will have, we expect, the same supreme leader in August as it will have today, as it had before the elections, [and] as it had in 2015 when the JCPOA [Iranian nuclear deal]
On Tuesday, he held a series of meetings with McKenzie, Clark and other senior CENTCOM officers at the command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. Kohavi also took part in a panel chaired by McKenzie and held a series of intelligence and operational reviews.
The officers discussed common security challenges in the region, including issues related to the threat posed by the Iranian nuclear project, Tehran’s attempt to entrench itself in the Middle East, Hezbollah’s attempts to strengthen itself and the consequences of the Lebanese terror group’s precision missile project.
They also discussed the challenges and related responses in the Palestinian arena, focusing on the Gaza Strip. Kohavi also presented the military’s main takeaways from Operation Guardian of the Walls.
“The IDF’s operational cooperation with the US military is unprecedented in its scope and has reached peaks in its quality,” such as with advanced weapons systems, ballistic missiles and the work done to combat the financing of terror, he said at the end of the visit.
“The current operational cooperation and the planned improvement agreed during the visit attest to the mutual commitment between CENTCOM and the IDF and will make it possible to deal more effectively with the diverse challenges,” Kohavi said.
His visit to Washington and Tampa that was scheduled to take place in April was postponed due to the fighting with Hamas and other terror groups in the Gaza Strip.
Also on Tuesday, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said that the election of Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi “proves” that Iran will continue to “develop weapons of mass destruction “that could threaten the world, stability of the region and the State of Israel.”
Speaking at a ceremony where he awarded military campaign pins for Israel’s 18-year occupation of southern Lebanon, Gantz stressed that Israel will not allow the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program to “pass in silence” and that Israel will continue to prevent it.
Following former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s veiled threat against the Biden administration’s policy of seeking to return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Gantz said “we will always share information, knowledge and coordinate with our friends, especially the United States.”
But, he continued, “at the same time we will always uphold our right, ability and duty to defend ourselves – independently. This is how it was and this is how it will be.”
Referring to the situation in Lebanon, he said that he sees “the plight of the citizens” of the “beautiful country” that “succumbed to terrorism.”
“Lebanon and its citizens are not enemies of Israel: it is Hezbollah that serves the interests of Iran – and as a result, it harms the people of Lebanon first and foremost,” Gantz said.
The defense minister had toured the Lebanese border along with IDF Operations Directorate
head Maj.-Gen. Oded Basiok and Northern Command head Maj.-Gen. Amir Baram earlier in the day and held a situational assessment of Israel’s northern front.