In an interview with ABC, U.S. Secretary of State says Washington working closely with Israel ‘on all level.’

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told ABC news on Tuesday that a unilateral Israeli strike on Iran is “not in anyone’s interest.”

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - Photo by: Reuters

“The U.S. has “worked very hard with Israel on all levels from the military, intelligence, strategic, and diplomatic level to make sure we were sharing information,” she said. “It’s our very strong belief, as President Obama conveyed to the Israelis, that it is not in anyone’s interest for them to take unilateral action.”

Clinton added that pursuing the diplomatic path is in everyone’s interest. She didn’t comment on the report claiming Israeli might use air bases in Azerbaijan, and refused to talk about an alternative plan case the talks with Iran fail.

“I don’t want to think about it that way, because I want to give this the very best effort we can,” she said. “So I don’t want to go into it with the attitude of, well, it’s going to fail, and I don’t want the Iranians to go into it with the attitude of that we can just keep it open and never have to come to any outcome.”

On Sunday, Clinton urged Iran to back up its declaration that Islam bars weapons of mass destruction by agreeing to a plan that would prove it does not intend to develop nuclear arms.

Ahead of international talks April 13 in Istanbul on Iran’s uranium enrichment program, Clinton talked strategy with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who visited Tehran last week with other government officials.

“They were told that the supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) viewed weapons of mass destruction as religiously prohibited, as against Islam,’’ Clinton said at a news conference.

In the ABC interview Clinton added that “I want us to come together in Istanbul in a few weeks and really talk honestly about what we need to do to remove the cloud of the Iranian nuclear program, and remove all of the suspicion that could possibly lead to confrontation from the international community.”

View Source
By Natasha Mozgovaya and The Associated Press