(Telegraph-UK) President Obama will arrive in Israel with a public agenda of restarting the Middle East peace talks, but his private discussions will be dominated by the issue of preventing a nuclear Iran, Israeli officials have told the Daily Telegraph. "The peace process may be the subject that is initially emphasized in public but there are other issues on the table that must be addressed before the summer," one diplomat said, alluding to Israel's spring deadline for Iran to stop enriching uranium. "The deal they will have done may be on the subject of war, not of peace." Israeli officials also said Prime Minister Netanyahu would look for reassurances that the U.S. would prevent Syria's extensive stocks of chemical weapons - nicknamed "Arms R' Us" by Israeli intelligence - from falling into the hands of al-Qaeda or Hizbullah. "There are currently bigger and much more urgent issues to address than the Palestinian-Israeli conflict," one Israeli official said.
2013-02-08 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive