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JNS.org Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said on Tuesday that the critical juncture regarding Irans nuclear program was at hand, and reiterated that the Jewish state would not be bound by any agreement reached in Vienna.

Speaking at a ceremony at the Mossad intelligence agencys Advanced Technologies and Innovation Event, attended by senior security officials, Bennett said, While one of our eyeslike the whole worldis on Kyiv, the other eye watches, tensely, at what is happening west of there, in Vienna.

For Israel, said the prime minister, There is no such thing as sunset, referring to the so-called sunset clauses of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear accord, lifting all restrictions on Irans nuclear program after a set number of years have elapsed. The sun will not set on Israels security and the well-being of its citizens, said Bennett.

Echoing past statements, Bennett reiterated that any agreement reached in Vienna between Iran and the world powers would not be binding on the Jewish state. And the datetwo and a half years from nowwhich allows Iran to assemble countless centrifuges, certainly does not bind us, he added.

Israels security establishment, he continued, faces many tests over the coming yearsas well as in the near future.

I wish we could leave them in the theoretical or experimental dimension only. But as it looks right now, your hands will be full. The bigmonumentaltask that lies on your shoulders is to prevent Iran from going nuclear. This is a task you have been dealing with for many years, but we seem to be approaching the moment of truth As far as I am concerned, youtogether with the IDF, of courseare the address. The mission is on you.

Returning to the subject of Russias invasion of Ukraine, Bennett said, As the world becomes, almost overnight, gloomy and dangerous, our appreciation of the importance of power and strength increases in us all.

A few hours flight from here, in Kyiv, the world order is undergoing a huge upheaval. From the beginning, the State of Israel has taken a measured and responsible approach, which allows us not only to protect our interests, but also to be useful. To be a reliable player, one of the few that can communicate directly with both parties, and assist as required. Indeed, helpquietly, said the prime minister.

On Tuesday morning, he noted, Israel had sent three planes full of humanitarian aid, mostly medicines, to Ukraine. More aid would be sent as needed, he said, adding, We are also preparing to provide humanitarian assistance on the ground and, of course, to facilitate the immigration of Jews, from all relevant places.

Bennett ended his address on a more optimistic note, saying, precisely when it seems that the world is going in worrying directions, the State of Israel is on a straight path and ascending. In every dimension, the last year is a year of leaps and bounds: in economic growth, security, political stability and our determination to unite Israeli society, calm the discourse and find unification and not division. Therein lies our true resilience, there lies our strength. And we will need it.

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Bennett: We Have Reached 'Moment of Truth' on Iran Nuclear Program - Algemeiner

Iran hands in its final package of proposals and says key decisions require political action from Western countries.

Tehran, Iran Iran has said any potential breakthrough in Vienna talks aimed at restoring its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers rests on political decisions by Western nations, after handing in its own final proposals.

Its better for Iran if theres an agreement in Vienna and sanctions are lifted today rather than tomorrow, said Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a news conference with his Irish counterpart Simon Coveney in Tehran on Monday.

So we are in a hurry for a good agreement, but it must be within the framework of logical talks and to achieve the rights of the Iranian nation, he added.

The Iranian foreign minister also called on the United States and the European signatories of the nuclear deal to stop playing with text and time of an agreement and display their political will.

Earlier on Monday, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Irans Supreme National Security Council, said in a tweet that the talks in the Austrian capital have reached a stage where an outcome could be announced, depending on the US position.

Shamkhani also said he held a phone call with Irans chief negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, on Sunday which reinforced his view that the Iranian team faces a tough challenge in sticking to its agenda, and that Western parties continue to make a show of political will to evade their commitments.

This comes shortly after Wang Qun, Chinas top negotiator, confirmed that Iran has offered its final package of proposals in response to a previous Western package, in what he called the final stage of the talks that began in April 2021.

The eighth round of the talks, which appears likely to be the last, is expected to yield results in the next few weeks as Western parties maintain very limited time is left to save the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Washington unilaterally abandoned the accord in 2018 and imposed harsh sanctions on Iran that remain in place. In response, Iran advanced its nuclear programme and is now using improved centrifuges to enrich uranium up to 60 percent. It has consistently maintained that its nuclear programme is peaceful.

All sides have concurred the talks have progressed in recent weeks. Mikhail Ulyanov, Russias chief negotiator, said in a tweet on Sunday that all assessments were positive following a meeting with US, European, and Chinese representatives without Iran.

Iran still refuses to negotiate directly with the US as long as Washington remains outside the JCPOA.

After a meeting with Amirabdollahian, the Irish foreign minister also met President Ebrahim Raisi.

Coveney was quoted by the Iranian presidents website as saying he understands Irans distrust of the US.

Ireland believes that necessary guarantees need to be given to Iran as part of the current talks so the deal can be restored, he said, in reference to Irans demands for guarantees the US will not renege on the accord again, and a period to verify the lifting of sanctions.

What we emphasise on in these talks is that sanctions need to be lifted in reality and the rights of the Iranian nation must be respected, Raisi told him.

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Iran says outcome of Vienna talks hinges on Western decisions - Al Jazeera English

Marathon talks to revive the Iran nuclear deal have hit a new roadblock, with Iran accusing the US of refusing to make the necessary political decisions to entrench the agreement in international law or to broaden the scope of economic sanctions that would be lifted.

The issue has dogged the talks in Vienna between the west, Russia, Iran and China which have been under way since February from the outset. There is no sign that the eighth round of negotiations, once intended to be the final round, has reached the breakthrough some had been expecting.

Ali Shamkhani, the hardline secretary of Irans national security council, in a tweet issued in multiple languages, declared after speaking to his governments negotiators that progress was becoming more and more difficult.

Expressing his frustration at the delays, he said: The Vienna negotiations had reached a point where the outcome could be described definitively without the need for guesswork.

A US political decision to accept the deal or refrain from accepting the requirements of a credible and lasting agreement based on the principles accepted in the nuclear agreement can replace speculation.

The US, he said, kept proposing new initiatives essentially designed to evade their commitments.

The foreign ministry spokesperson, Saeed Khatibzadeh, at his weekly press conference tried to calm the atmosphere by saying he had spoken to Irans chief negotiator in Vienna, Ali Bagheri, and that he had been assured the position was neither one of flowers and nightingales, nor one of rocks and thorns. But, he added, the onus lay on the US to accept Irans terms.

Asked what guarantees Iran was seeking, Khatibzadeh said: The United States is not trustworthy and therefore objective guarantees must be obtained so that international law and relations are not again mocked by the US government.

He added that all sanctions should be lifted at the UN security council. It does not matter what the title of the sanctions is since they were applied with a false label, Khatibzadeh said.

He stressed that any agreement on the release of political prisoners, including US dual-nationals held in Iranian jails, was discussed only in parallel with the nuclear talks.

Prof Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian analyst in Vienna thought to be close to the government, also claimed the tensions centred on the range of sanctions that would be lifted as part of the deal. Iran is pushing for all sanctions to be lifted, but the US says some sanctions are linked to human rights and terrorists abuses, and are not linked to the nuclear deal.

Mikhail Ulyanov, the Russian ambassador at the talks, adopted a less pessimistic tone. He said the discussions were at a final stage and that significant progress had been made. But he has tended to adopt a more positive outlook, adopting a near role of mediator between the US and Iran, one he has maintained despite tensions over Ukraine. Wang Qun, Chinas ambassador to the UN in Vienna, also broke silence at the weekend to say the talks were at a concluding stage.

The 20-page draft agreement with annexes is largely written, but the outstanding issues show an absolute determination by the Iranian regime to ensure that it appears to emerge from the talks victoriously, having withstood the might of US sanctions.

Joe Biden, distracted by the Ukraine crisis, is already facing mounting political resistance from US Republican senators who insist that the president cannot evade Congress by refusing to put any new agreement to a vote. Democrats have said that if the deal was put to the Senate for approval, they did not think the necessary 60 senators would vote to reject it. The Senate is split 50:50, with vice-president Kamala Harris having the casting vote.

But the Iranian armys recent display of new long-range solid-fuel missiles with a range of 900 miles (1,450km) will hardly make it easier for the US administration to sell the deal.

Iran has also claimed that the US negotiating team with which it does not meet directly is divided on how far to compromise.

The agreement is designed to bring the US, and subsequently Iran, back into the original nuclear deal signed in 2015 from which the US withdrew in 2018.

The talks have been held against a backdrop of repeated warnings from the west stretching back months that the talks can continue only for a few more weeks because Iran is coming ever closer to obtaining irreversibly the material and knowledge required to make a nuclear weapon.

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Iran nuclear deal talks stall as Tehran urges US to accept terms - The Guardian

Liz Truss has said she hopes Britain will soon be in a position to pay the 400m debt overdue to Iran, according to an Iranian account of the phone call between the foreign secretary and her Tehran counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

UK government officials have been exploring legal ways to pay Britains historical debt, although international economic sanctions on Iran have made it difficult.

The UK Foreign Office did not proactively brief reporters on the call, but when contacted for comment it confirmed that the conversation had happened on Monday, saying: We continue to explore options as a matter of urgency to resolve this case. It said the UK had always been committed to paying the debt.

With talks on the Iran nuclear deal reaching their decisive stage in Vienna, it is possible Truss wanted to stress the upside of both sides reaching a deal. The two countries insist that the 400m debt dating back to the sale of tanks to the shah of Iran in the mid-1970s has always been treated as independent of the Vienna talks and the fate of three British dual nationals held in Evin prison or, in the case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, denied the right to leave Iran.

The tone of the call, according to the Iranian account, appeared to have been warmer than for some time, with Iran eager to see the UK do more to help with the Afghan refugee crisis on its borders. According to Iran, Truss praised Tehran for housing as many as 2 million refugees. The foreign ministry said: Amir-Abdollahian positively assessed the relations between the two countries.

It may have been significant that the Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, was in Tehran on Monday. He has acted as a conciliator on political prisoner issues in the past.

In the UK parliament last month, Boris Johnson again blamed the threat of sanctions for the block on the payment.

The Vienna talks will mean many of sanctions could be lifted, but it has been argued that the UK has been responsible for its own sanctions laws since Brexit and so could pay the debt now if it is not tied up in a wider negotiation.

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Truss tells Iran she hopes UK will soon be able to repay 400m debt - The Guardian

Monday, 14 February 2022 In a recent two-day visit to Zahedan University of Medical Sciences (UMS) in the southern and border province of Sistan and Baluchestan, Islamic Republic of Iran, World Health Organization (WHO) Representative and Head of Mission Dr Syed Jaffar Hussain met with local health authorities to review the efforts made in scaling up health services in the province and to explore avenues of collaboration in promoting national plans in the area of health and health promotion in the area.

The visit on February 12 mainly aimed to look at the collective progress made over the past years by universities of medical sciences and relevant agencies in the province with regards to health care services, including those concerning Afghan refugees and other foreign nationals in the area.

The visit encompassed a meeting headed by Iranian parliaments Health Commission Head, Dr Hossein Shahriyari, with Dr Hussain, which reviewed the health priorities of Sistan and Baluchestan and discussed ways that WHO can support ongoing or planned efforts in the field. The high-level session was attended by Dr Hashemi Shahri, Chancellor of Zahedan UMS and his deputy for Public Health Affairs Dr Seyed Mehdi Tabatabaei, as well as Dr Kamran Kordi, Chancellor of Iranshahr UMS, Dr Mahdi Afshari, Deputy Chancellor of Zabol UMS, Dr Mansour Saeedi, Director General of the provincial Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrants Affairs, and Dr Mansour Ranjbar, Lead for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health at the WHO country office.

There has been remarkable advancement in improvement of health indicators in the province over the past few decades, but the continuation of this positive trend so that it meets the national average requires further scaled up support and effort, said Dr Hussain during the meeting.

Dr Shahriyari took note of milestones achieved in Sistsan and Baluchestan, including elimination of local transmission of polio, measles and rubella, and acknowledged WHOs continued support over the years.

It is natural that decades of war and insecurity in the neighbouring country of Afghanistan have also affected health issues, and now one of our health systems serious concerns, especially in the border regions, is tuberculosis and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, he added.

While thanking the Islamic Republic of Iran and the national health system, Dr Hussain expressed WHOs readiness to provide continued international support from available resources to the provincial health sector. Afghan immigrants have been benefiting from various free public health services in the country, including Sistan and Baluchestan, for many years.

Providing assistance to Sistan and Baluchestan in strengthening the response to COVID-19, furthering cooperation with the neighbouring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan in tackling health issues, and supporting health and medical infrastructure in the province in cooperation with Health Ministry and other UN Agencies were among other topics discussed during the visit.

As the leading agency within the UN-led working group on health in the country, WHO will use all potential opportunities to support the province in partnership with its UN partners, including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), World Food Programme (WFP) and other collaborators, Dr Jaffar underlined.

The meeting also discussed the possibility of Zahedan UMS establishing a rapid response emergency stock warehouse in the province in cooperation with WHO.

Such a centre will be able to provide pharmaceuticals, equipment, diagnostic kits and the like and keep them in proper storage conditions in order to be quickly distributed in the area when needed, said Dr Hussain during the meeting. A similar centre is currently operating in Dubai with the support of WHO and had demonstrated success in the rapid distribution of international donations to approximately 100 countries worldwide, he added.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is also ramping up national efforts to structure and reinforce surveillance of vector-borne diseases by setting up an insectarium at Zahedan UMS in the province. The insectarium, which was visited by the WHO delegation, is being constructed with the aim to establish a surveillance system with an emphasis on Anopheles (bearing malaria) and Aedes (dengue carriers) mosquitoes as two potentially key disease carriers given the tropical climate of the region. Once completed, it will become the national and regional hub for entomological studies, local authorities predict.

The WHO teams excursion concluded by visiting the proposed premises for the rapid response emergency stock warehouse, dialysis and intensive care units of Khatam Al Anbia Hospital, Zahedan Alghadir Refugee Camp, Ammar Yaser Health Centre and Delivery Facility (in Shirabad neighbourhood) and Seraj Community-Based Mental Health Clinic.

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Islamic Republic of Iran firms up efforts for prevention and control of tropical diseases surveillance and health care services availability for...