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"Iran wants to destroy Israel and it is developing nuclear weapons to fulfill that goal," Netanyahu said at a conference in Jerusalem. "Against this malicious intention, leading world powers need to display determination and not weakness. They should not make any concessions to Iran." Jalili, Iran's top nuclear negotiator who met with Amano and will also be the lead envoy at the Baghdad talks, said his country hopes for a new beginning when the talks start on Wednesday. "We hope that the talks in Baghdad will be a kind of dialogue that will give shape to ... cooperation," Jalili said after arriving in Baghdad late Monday. As part of any agreement, Amano and his agency are focused on getting Iran to let agency experts to probe various high-profile Iranian sites, including the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, where the agency believes Iran in 2003 ran explosive tests needed to set off a nuclear charge. The suspected blasts took place inside a pressure chamber. Iran has never said whether the chamber existed, but describes Parchin as a conventional military site. Iran, however, has blocked IAEA requests for access to sites, scientists and documents needed for its investigation for more than four years. Amano's talks included Jalili as well as Iran's foreign minister and other officials including the head of Iran's nuclear agency, Fereidoun Abbasi. Iranian lawmaker Heshmatollah Falahtpisheh told The Associated Press on Monday that Tehran will likely accept more inspections of Parchin "if it feels there is good will within the (IAEA)." But Falahtpisheh warned that this new openness will likely come with expectations that the West would in return ease international sanctions on Iran. "In opening up to more inspections, Iran aims at lowering the crisis over its nuclear case," he said. "But if the sanctions continue, Iran would stop this." A political analyst in Tehran, Hamid Reza Shokouhi, said Iran is carefully watching to see if the West shows more "flexibility and pays attention to Iranian demands" during Amano's trip. "Then Iran will show flexibility, too," Shokouhi said. But some Iranian media was critical of Amano and the IAEA, possibly reflecting internal divisions on how far to go compromise on nuclear issues.
In a sign of ebbing market worries, oil prices have steadily fallen since Iran and world powers resumed talks in April in Istanbul. Fears of supply disruptions because of military conflict or Iranian shipping blockades helped drive prices above $106 a barrel earlier this year. Oil rose to slightly above $92 per barrel Monday in New York.
[Associated
Press;
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