{"id":5168,"date":"2013-02-05T03:08:55","date_gmt":"2013-02-05T09:08:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=5168"},"modified":"2013-02-05T03:08:55","modified_gmt":"2013-02-05T09:08:55","slug":"kerry-talks-to-netanyahu-abbas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/kerry-talks-to-netanyahu-abbas\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerry talks to Netanyahu, Abbas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON (JTA) &#8212; John Kerry, freshly installed as secretary of state, spoke with the Palestinian and Israeli leaders. Also over the weekend, two top State Department officials dealing with Iran&#8217;s alleged nuclear threat said they would be stopping in Israel during overseas visits and Israel&#8217;s military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, was visiting Washington.<\/p>\n<p>State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland spoke about Kerry&#8217;s conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The secretary underscored his personal commitment and that of President Obama to support Israel&#8217;s security and to pursue a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,&#8221; Nuland said, according to a Reuters report.<\/p>\n<p>Kerry, who plans to visit the region next month, also spoke to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.<\/p>\n<p>The State Department in a statement laid out the agenda for the two State Department officials &#8212; Rose Gottemoeller, the acting undersecretary for arms control, and Thomas Countryman, the assistant secretary for nonproliferation.<\/p>\n<p>Countryman will &#8220;meet with Israeli counterparts to discuss nonproliferation and international security issues of mutual concern,&#8221; and Gottemoeller will &#8220;consult with senior civilian and military officials on pressing regional security issues and expanding our enduring strategic partnership&#8221; and deliver remarks at a conference on nuclear nonproliferation, the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The Obama administration has indicated that it is seeking to engage with Iran in direct talks aimed at ending Iran&#8217;s suspected nuclear weapons program. Iran says its nuclear activity is strictly peaceful.<\/p>\n<p>The Israel Defense Forces in announcing the five-day visit by Gantz said it was &#8220;official &#8230; as the guest of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In its statement, the IDF said the two generals would &#8220;discuss current security challenges, the regional security status in the Middle East and military cooperation.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" data-src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" class=\"lazyload\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/noscript><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"Email\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Kerry%20talks%20to%20Netanyahu%2C%20Abbas\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[8790,8795,1560,514,8788,337,674,1561],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5169,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5168\/revisions\/5169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}