Netanyahu: Israel and Arab states advancing common interest of combating Iran

Israel is working to oust Iran from Syria, Netanyahu said, adding, “we are obligated to do this and we will do this.”

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
Updated: FEBRUARY 13, 2019 22:04
Netanyahu ice skate rink Warsaw - Feb. 13, 2019 (photo credit: GPO)
Netanyahu ice skate rink Warsaw - Feb. 13, 2019
(photo credit: GPO)
Arab countries and Israel are talking about combating Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in Warsaw, as he filmed a shot near a skating rink for his Facebook page.
“From here I am going to a meeting with 60 foreign ministers and envoys of countries from around the world against Iran,” Netanyahu said.
“What is important about this meeting – and this meeting is not in secret, because there are many of those – is that this is an open meeting with representatives of leading Arab countries, that are sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of combating Iran.” Netanyahu said.
On the northern front, Israel is working to oust Iran from Syria, Netanyahu said.
"What we are doing is pushing and driving Iran from Syria. We are committed to doing this," he said. “It is cold in Warsaw right now but Israel's foreign relations are warming up, warming up for the better."
He spoke after his meeting with Omani Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah.
The Israeli Prime Minister is in Warsaw to attend the Ministerial to Promote a Future of Peace and Security in the Middle East, which opens on Wednesday night and extends into Thursday.
Both US Vice President Mike Pence and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, are expected to address the ministerial meeting that includes representatives from the Arab world and the 28 nations that make up the European Union.
US envoy Jason Greenblatt, who is in Warsaw tweeted in advance of the conference that, “Iran is the primary threat to the future of regional peace/security.
“Iran is the primary threat to the future of regional peace/security,” he wrote.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Europe to distance itself from the US.
"Today, the Iranian people see some European countries as cunning and untrustworthy along with the criminal America. The government of the Islamic Republic must carefully preserve its boundaries with them,” he wrote.
"Iran must not retreat a single step from national and revolutionary values.”
US President Donald Trump's attorney and former mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani, called for Iranian regime change on Wednesday ahead of a US-backed Middle East summit in Warsaw.
“Everyone knows that Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world. There isn't a single government there that disagrees with that,” he said.
"The reality is, Iran should be isolated until Iran changes. If they can do what our government, American government, other governments, believe and make policy change within, I would be satisfied with that, although skeptical. If it results in regime change, I think that would be a cleaner solution,” Giuliani said.
He spoke ahead of a rally to show support for the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), a bloc of opposition groups in exile that seeks to end Shi'ite Muslim clerical rule in Iran.
Protesters banged drums, chanted, waved flags and placards outside the summit venue at the National Stadium. They were protesting the current regime and its human rights' violations.
An Iranian protester Mahmoud Masoudi of Germany said,"We are coming here to support Maryam Rajavi (head of National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) as our leader and the only alternative to the dictatorship in Iran. This is the basic reason that all of us are here today. And we think it is the time to support NCRI, National Council of Resistance, which includes the most democratic groups in Iran against Khamenei regime, against dictatorship in Iran, the religious dictatorship.”
The NCRI members joined the 1979 Islamic revolution but later broke from the ruling clerics. Based in Iraq in the early 1980s, their fighters clashed with U.S. forces during the 2003 Iraq war, but have since renounced violence.
NCRI, also known by its Farsi name Mujahideen-e-Khalq, was once listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union but that is no longer the case.
Reuters contributed to this report.


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