Peres expresses hope that new voices emerging from Iran

While on state visit to Ukraine, President says tough sanctions influencing Iranian leadership.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
Peres and Ukranian President Yanukovich 370 (photo credit: Courtesy the President's Residence)
Peres and Ukranian President Yanukovich 370
(photo credit: Courtesy the President's Residence)
President Shimon Peres, at a meeting in Yalta on Friday with Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, expressed hope that there would be “new voices” emerging from Iran.
Sanctions taken against Iran in an effort to prevent the continuation of its nuclear program had been effective and had also served to influence the Iranian leadership, Peres said.
He emphasized, as he has done many times previously, that of all the options available to persuade Tehran to forgo nuclearization, the nonmilitary one was preferred.
If the sanctions implemented to date succeed in dissuading Iran from developing nuclear weapons, so much for the good, said Peres, while warning that if Iran does not desist, all other options remain open. Whoever engages in terrorism, he continued, endangers his own country. There is no greater hazard in the Middle East than terrorism. Terrorists ruin countries and divide nations, said Peres, citing the Palestinians, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
In the final analysis, he predicted, all nations will use whatever resources they have at their disposal to do away with terrorists and terrorism.