Netanyahu urges France to keep tough line on Iran

A day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Iran had not expanded its uranium enrichment capacity in recent months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday urged France, seen as the most hawkish of the six world powers currently negotiating with Iran, not to weaken its stance on Iran’s nuclear program.

Just days before French President Francois Hollande's visit to Israel, Netanyahu told a French newspaper that he hoped France stays firm on its position, which some analysts have suggested was a major reason why the last round of talks failed to produce a deal.

France has generally held to a harder line on Iran over the past decade than other Western countries. During the latest round of negotiations, France appeared less flexible on allowing significant Iranian nuclear enrichment and the construction of a heavy-water reactor than the other five negotiating countries.

"We hope that France will not weaken," Netanyahu told Le Figaro in an interview. "We salute (Hollande's) consistent and determined position on the Iranian issue."

The French leader travels to Israel on Tuesday and will focus on the next round of nuclear talks, which resume Wednesday in Geneva, Switzerland.

Netanyahu reiterated his government's opposition to Iran pursuing any research that could lead to the development of a nuclear weapon, saying it should not possess heavy water reactors or centrifuges used to enrich radioactive material. Israel also rejects Iran's ability to enrich any amount of uranium on its own soil, a position that is more demanding than the six nations conducting the negotiations — the U.S., U.K., Germany, Russia, China and France.

Tehran says it wants to produce nuclear energy, not bombs, something which is covered under the terms of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), to which Iran is a signatory but which Israel, with its own presumed nuclear stockpile, is not.

The countries involved in the Geneva talks hope to finalize a preliminary deal to curb its nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief as part of a confidence-building accord that would buy time for negotiations on a more far-reaching settlement.

Iran has over the past year kept the amount of its 20 percent reserve well below Israel's so-called "red line" — at which point Israel has threatened attacks — by converting a large part of the uranium gas into oxide to make fuel for a medical research reactor in Tehran.

But conversion work was halted between Aug. 20 and Nov. 5, in part for maintenance reasons, according to the quarterly report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), issued to member states late on Thursday.

As Iran continued production of 20 percent uranium gas, the stockpile would probably have grown steadily during much of the Aug.-Nov. period covered by the report.

Iran faced a "delicate balancing act," a Western diplomat in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said. If it stops refining to 20 percent, it gives in to the West’s demands and gains nothing in return. But if it fails to convert enough, it risks provoking Israel and sends the wrong message to the West, the envoy said.

But a senior diplomat familiar with the IAEA's report said Iran's move to stop converting during a couple of months for maintenance was "normal ... nothing exceptional."

The IAEA report showed that since Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, became president in August, Iran had virtually stopped the expansion of its overall uranium enrichment capacity.

Iran says it is refining uranium to produce energy. But its refusal to scale back its nuclear program and open it up to unfettered IAEA inspections has drawn tough sanctions that have severely damaged its oil-dependent economy.

Al Jazeera and Reuters