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Israeli Delegation to Visit the US Sunday to Discuss Iran Sanctions

Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks at a memorial ceremony on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery on April 11, 2021.
Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks at a memorial ceremony on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery on April 11, 2021.
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Israeli Delegation to Visit the US Sunday to Discuss Iran Sanctions

Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks at a memorial ceremony on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery on April 11, 2021.
Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi speaks at a memorial ceremony on Jerusalem's Mount Herzl national cemetery on April 11, 2021.

Senior Israeli intelligence and military officials are expected to travel to Washington on Sunday for talks with US officials on the Iranian danger and the potential harm in returning to the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran.

An Israeli security official said Friday that the trip aims to limit tension between Israel and the administration of Joe Biden on Iran’s nuclear program.

He said the Israeli delegation would request from Washington some amendments when discussing a deal with Iran, mainly not to lift all sanctions.

Israel also wants the US to include a clause in the new deal that will allow inspectors to visit Iranian nuclear sites without prior warning.

Political sources said that due to disputes in Tel Aviv between Netanyahu and the military leadership, a decision was taken to divide the Israeli delegation to Washington into two independent groups.

The military delegation shall include army chief of staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, Mossad head Yossi Cohen and the army’s military intelligence directorate head, Maj. Gen. Tamir Haymen.

A political delegation including Israeli National Security Advisor Meir Ben Shabbat and Ambassador of Israel to the US Gilad Erdan is expected to arrive in Washington on Monday to launch an international campaign against Iran’s policies and its plans to dominate the Middle East.

The sources said the military delegation is scheduled to meet with a number of top US defense officials, including Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, head of the US Central Command Kenneth McKenzie, and head of the US Special Operations Command Richard Clark.

The Israeli news site Walla quoted a security official as saying that the timing of Kochavi’s visit to Washington is extremely important because an agreement between the US and Iran could be signed in a week.

“Therefore, this is our last endeavor to reveal to the US administration the military situation in the Middle East and the repercussions such deal would have on the region,” the news site said.

The official confirmed that in Washington, the Kochavi delegation’s discussions would focus on the nuclear deal and Iran’s role in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Lebanon.

Kochavi will give sensitive information about the nuclear deal, in addition to Hezbollah’s efforts to improve the precision of its missiles and the current cooperation between the Lebanese party and other organizations, he added.

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Rutte: Russian Victory Over Ukraine Would Have Costly Impact on NATO's Credibility

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
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Rutte: Russian Victory Over Ukraine Would Have Costly Impact on NATO's Credibility

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gives a joint press conference with Finland's president and Estonia's prime minister during the Baltic Sea NATO Allies Summit in Helsinki, Finland, 14 January 2025. EPA/KIMMO BRANDT

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte warned on Thursday that a Russian victory over Ukraine would undermine the dissuasive force of the world’s biggest military alliance and that its credibility could cost trillions to restore.
NATO has been ramping up its forces along its eastern flank with Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, deploying thousands of troops and equipment to deter Moscow from expanding its war into the territory of any of the organization’s 32 member countries.
“If Ukraine loses then to restore the deterrence of the rest of NATO again, it will be a much, much higher price than what we are contemplating at this moment in terms of ramping up our spending and ramping up our industrial production,” the Associated Press quoted Rutte as saying.
“It will not be billions extra; it will be trillions extra,” he said, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Rutte insisted that Ukraine’s Western backers must “step up and not scale back the support” they are providing to the country, almost three years after Russia’s full-fledged invasion began.
“We have to change the trajectory of the war,” Rutte said, adding that the West “cannot allow in the 21st century that one country invades another country and tries to colonize it."
"We are beyond those days,” he said.
Anxiety in Europe is mounting that US President Donald Trump might seek to quickly end the war in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on terms that are unfavorable to Ukraine, but Rutte appeared wary about trying to do things in a hurry.
“If we got a bad deal, it would only mean that we will see the president of Russia high-fiving with the leaders from North Korea, Iran and China and we cannot accept that,” the former Dutch prime minister said. “That would be geopolitically a big, big mistake.”
Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski welcomed Trump's acknowledgement that it must be Russia which should make the first peace moves, but he cautioned that “this is not the Putin that President Trump knew in his first term.”
On Wednesday, Trump threatened to impose stiff taxes, tariffs and sanctions on Moscow if an agreement isn’t reached to end the war, but that warning will probably fall on deaf ears in the Kremlin. Russia's economy is already weighed down by a multitude of US and European sanctions.
Sikorksi warned that Putin should not be put at the center of the world stage over Ukraine.
“The president of the United States is the leader of the free world. Vladimir Putin is an outcast and an indicted war criminal for stealing Ukrainian children,” Sikorski said.
"I would suggest that Putin has to earn the summit, that if he gets it early, it elevates him beyond his, significance and gives him the wrong idea about the trajectory of this,” he said.