Avigdor Liberman. (photo credit: MARC ISRAEL SELLEM/THE JERUSALEM POST)
Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman hopes the framework for North Korean denuclearization being set by US President Donald Trump will also be applied to Iran’s nuclear program, he said Sunday.
“I wish that the model of total [North] Korean abandonment of its nuclear program could be realized in the case of Iran as well,” Liberman said in an interview with Army Radio. “We saw the opposite – Ayatollah Khamenei’s announcement that he has ordered the acceleration his country’s nuclear program.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un arrived in Singapore Sunday morning, the country’s foreign minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said on Twitter. Kim is slated to meet with Trump in Singapore Tuesday for a much-anticipated summit aimed at bringing North and South Korea closer to peace, and, perhaps more importantly, reigning in the North’s nuclear weapons program.
Trump-Kim (US-North Korea) summit is set for Sentosa Island, June 6, 2018 (Reuters)
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted last week that he was “following reports that Iran is planning to expand its uranium enrichment capabilities,” adding that “the United States will not allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.”
Pompeo’s comments came after Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi threatened that next month a nuclear plant for the construction of advanced centrifuges in Natanz, Iran, would be completed. Salhi said on local television that “Following the order from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, we prepared the place within 48 hours.”
Pompeo said US policy isn’t new to Iran.
“Iran is aware of our determination,” he said.
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