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Netanyahu Sending Top Security Adviser to U.S. for Talks on Iran

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu / Reuters
November 25, 2013

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would soon send a team led by his national security adviser to Washington for talks with the United States on a final nuclear deal with Iran.

"I spoke last night with President Obama. We agreed that in the coming days an Israeli team led by the national security adviser, Yossi Cohen, will go out to discuss with the United States the permanent accord with Iran," he said in public remarks to members of his Likud party.

"This accord must bring about one outcome: the dismantling of Iran's military nuclear capability," said Netanyahu, who has described Sunday's interim deal between world powers and Iran as a historic mistake.

Iran and six world powers clinched a deal on Sunday to curb the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for initial sanctions relief, signaling the start of a game-changing rapprochement that they say will reduce the risk of a wider Middle East war.

The agreement, which halts Iran's most sensitive nuclear activity, its higher-grade enrichment of uranium, was tailored as a package of confidence-building steps towards reducing decades of tension and ultimately creating a more stable, secure Middle East.

The interim pact between Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia won the critical endorsement of Iranian clerical Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

(Reporting by Jeffrey Heller, Editing by Dan Williams)