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What President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu Said in Washington

[White House] President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke after their meeting on Monday, May 18: Obama: Israel "is a stalwart ally of the United States. We have historical ties, emotional ties. As the only true democracy of the Middle East it is a source of admiration and inspiration for the American people....It is in U.S. national security interests to assure that Israel's security as an independent Jewish state is maintained." "Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon would not only be a threat to Israel and a threat to the United States, but would be profoundly destabilizing in the international community as a whole and could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that would be extraordinarily dangerous for all concerned, including for Iran." "We're not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while Iran proceeds with developing and deploying a nuclear weapon....If we can begin discussions soon, shortly after the Iranian elections [in June], we should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether they are moving in the right direction." "It is I believe in the interest not only of the Palestinians, but also the Israelis and the United States and the international community to achieve a two-state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians are living side by side in peace and security....All the parties involved have to take seriously obligations that they've previously agreed to. Those obligations were outlined in the road map; they were discussed extensively in Annapolis." Netanyahu: "We share the same goals and we face the same threats. The common goal is peace. Everybody in Israel, as in the United States, wants peace. The common threats we face are terrorist regimes and organizations that seek to undermine the peace and endanger both our peoples." "The worst danger we face is that Iran would develop nuclear military capabilities. Iran openly calls for our destruction, which is unacceptable by any standard. It threatens the moderate Arab regimes in the Middle East. It threatens U.S. interests worldwide. But if Iran were to acquire nuclear weapons, it could give a nuclear umbrella to terrorists, or worse, it could actually give terrorists nuclear weapons. And that would put us all in great peril." "I want to start peace negotiations with the Palestinians immediately. I would like to broaden the circle of peace to include others in the Arab world....We don't want to govern the Palestinians. We want to live in peace with them." If "there's recognition of Israel's legitimacy, its permanent legitimacy, then I think we can envision an arrangement where Palestinians and Israelis live side by side in dignity, in security, and in peace." "It would help, obviously, unite a broad front against Iran if we had peace between Israel and the Palestinians. And conversely, if Iran went nuclear, it would threaten the progress towards peace and destabilize the entire area....We see exactly eye to eye on this - that we want to move simultaneously and in parallel on two fronts: the front of peace, and the front of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear capability."
2009-05-19 06:00:00
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