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Rafsanjani: Iran’s hard-liners 'in harmony with Netanyahu'

Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani has said that Iran's hard-liners are in line with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in opposing a nuclear deal with the West, drawing the ire of one of Iran's most conservative newspapers.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress in the House Chamber on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 3, 2015. REUTERS/Gary Cameron (UNITED STATES  - Tags: POLITICS)   - RTR4RWHO
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The March 3 speech by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in front of the US Congress warning against a nuclear deal with Iran and the circus-like atmosphere of the event's coverage has even sucked Iranian partisans into the debate. As the March 31 soft deadline for Iran's nuclear talks with the UN Security council approaches, Iranian political groups are taking their final shots at one another. Yesterday, the head of Iran’s Expediency Council, Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, took name-calling one step further by comparing Iran’s hard-liners and critics of a nuclear deal to the Israeli leader.

During an address at the Interior Ministry, Rafsanjani called the nuclear negotiations “the most important project for the administration” and reiterated that the “nuclear negotiation team is supported by the supreme leader.” He said that even the negotiators have repeatedly said that they are “pushing forward with the supreme leader’s plans” in the nuclear talks, “but I don’t know what happens to them that these ‘concerned’ parties are in harmony with Netanyahu.” “The concerned” is how critics of a prospective nuclear deal once referred themselves, and the name has caught on in the Iranian media and is used for hard-liners opposed to a deal.

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