Netanyahu pressuring Europe to embargo Iranian oil

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Thursday said that he was putting pressure on European countries to immediately impose an embargo on Iranian oil, and not to delay it until July.

Speaking to reporters during his visit to Holland, Netanyahu also said that Iran has already decided to become a nuclear state. He said that action should be taken before it is too late, and that sanctions on Iran must be intensified.

A day earlier, Netanyahu called the Iranian nuclear threat “the issue that most concerns Israel” and said that the Netherlands and Israel “stand together in opposing Iran’s feverish pursuit of nuclear weapons while declaring its intention to wipe Israel off the map.”

“Nuclear arms in Iran are a threat to Israel, the region and the world,” he said in a speech in Amsterdam. “Sanctions should be applied to Iran’s central bank and its oil exports – and they should be applied now.”

“I want to thank the Netherlands for its support for strong sanctions on Iran,” Netanyahu added.

He also reiterated his call to PA President Mahmoud Abbas to “start negotiations for peace with no preconditions” and lauded the Dutch Parliament for passing a motion last year calling on the Palestinian Authority to recognize Israel as the Jewish state. “The persistent [Palestinian] refusal to accept a Jewish state within any boundaries is the core of the conflict,” he said.

Netanyahu commended Holland’s wartime record, which this month became the subject of a heated public debate in the Netherlands.

“The people of the Netherlands can be proud that despite their small size, they possess the second highest number of Righteous Gentiles of any country – thousand of righteous who risked their lives and the lives of their families, their own children to save Jews,” Netanyahu said.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.
(By JPOST.COM STAFF AND CNAAN LIPSHIZ)