Netanyahu Says Iran's Entire Nuclear Program Must Go

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, 24 April 2025. EPA/MAYA ALLERUZZO
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, 24 April 2025. EPA/MAYA ALLERUZZO
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Netanyahu Says Iran's Entire Nuclear Program Must Go

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, 24 April 2025. EPA/MAYA ALLERUZZO
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends a ceremony marking the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day, at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem, 24 April 2025. EPA/MAYA ALLERUZZO

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday repeated calls for Iran's entire nuclear infrastructure to be dismantled, as Washington and Tehran engage in talks for a nuclear accord.

The United States and Iran have so far held three rounds of indirect talks, mediated by Oman, aimed at sealing a deal that would block Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon but also lift crippling economic sanctions imposed by Washington.
After talks in Rome earlier this month, Oman said that the US and Iran were pursuing an accord that would see Tehran "completely free" of nuclear weapons and sanctions but "maintaining its ability to develop peaceful nuclear energy."
Netanyahu said the only "good deal" would be one that removed "all of the infrastructure" akin to the 2003 agreement that Libya made with the West that saw it give up its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs.
Israeli officials have long vowed to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, an assertion Netanyahu repeated.
Israel has not ruled out attacking Iran's nuclear facilities in the coming months despite President Donald Trump telling Netanyahu that the US was for now unwilling to support such an operation, Reuters reported on April 19, citing an Israeli official and two other sources familiar with the matter.
Netanyahu, speaking late on Sunday in Jerusalem, said that he had told Trump that any nuclear agreement reached with Iran should also prevent Tehran from developing ballistic missile.
An Iranian official told Reuters this month that Tehran saw its missile program as the main sticking point in US talks.
Iran in April 2024 and again in October 2024 attacked Israel with drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles after Israel had killed Iranian generals and officials from Iranian proxies.
"We are in close contact with the United States. But I said, one way or the other, Iran will not have nuclear weapons," Netanyahu said at a conference organized by the Jewish News Syndicate, referring to a conversation he had with Trump.



India’s Modi Arrives in Kashmir to Open Strategic Railway

 A decorated Vande Bharat passenger train is pictured at the Srinagar railway station in Srinagar on June 6, 2025, ahead of the inauguration of the Kashmir rail link by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AFP)
A decorated Vande Bharat passenger train is pictured at the Srinagar railway station in Srinagar on June 6, 2025, ahead of the inauguration of the Kashmir rail link by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AFP)
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India’s Modi Arrives in Kashmir to Open Strategic Railway

 A decorated Vande Bharat passenger train is pictured at the Srinagar railway station in Srinagar on June 6, 2025, ahead of the inauguration of the Kashmir rail link by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AFP)
A decorated Vande Bharat passenger train is pictured at the Srinagar railway station in Srinagar on June 6, 2025, ahead of the inauguration of the Kashmir rail link by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (AFP)

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Kashmir on Friday, his first visit to the contested Himalayan region since a conflict with arch-rival Pakistan last month, and opened a strategic railway line.

Modi is launching a string of projects worth billions of dollars for the divided Muslim-majority territory, the center of bitter rivalry between India and Pakistan since their independence from British rule in 1947.

Nuclear-armed India and Pakistan fought an intense four-day conflict last month, their worst standoff since 1999, before a ceasefire was agreed on May 10.

His office broadcast images of Modi at a viewing point for the Chenab Bridge, a 1,315-meter-long (4,314-foot-long) steel and concrete span that connects two mountains with an arch 359 meters above the river below.

"In addition to being an extraordinary feat of architecture, the Chenab Rail Bridge will improve connectivity," the Hindu nationalist leader said in a social media post ahead of his visit.

Modi strode across the bridge waving a giant Indian flag to formally declare it open for rail traffic soon after his arrival.

New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge". While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.

The new 272-kilometer (169-mile) Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla railway, with 36 tunnels and 943 bridges, has been constructed "aiming to transform regional mobility and driving socio-economic integration", Modi's office says.

The bridge will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.

The railway "ensures all weather connectivity" and will "boost spiritual tourism and create livelihood opportunities", Modi said.

The railway line is expected to halve the travel time between the town of Katra in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Srinagar, the main city in Muslim-majority Kashmir, to around three hours.

More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire during last month's conflict.

The fighting was triggered by an April 22 attack on civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir that New Delhi accused Pakistan of backing -- a charge Islamabad denies.

Rebel groups in Indian-run Kashmir have waged a 35-year-long insurgency demanding independence for the territory or its merger with Pakistan.