Ehud Barak

Iran vowed it will cling on to its right to enrich uranium to more than five percent purity even if it strikes a deal for a third party to do the work, as Israel came out against any such deal. "As we have said before, we will not give up our rights," Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, was quoted as saying by state-owned Iran newspaper on Thursday. Full details of an enrichment agreement between the Islamic Republic and international powers will be unveiled on Friday, according to Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Authority. But Salehi ... Read Full Story

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak on Wednesday hailed a US move to create a sea-borne anti-missile shield to ward off Iranian threats in place of a planned system in eastern Europe that angered Russia. "We've listened very carefully to the American argumentation about the change in policy," Barak told reporters during a visit to Poland, where Washington had planned to base a battery of missile interceptors. "The new approach really provides more flexibility and, in a relatively short time, a much more effective, economical way to deal effectively with the challenge of missiles from Iran," he said. Last month, the administration of US President ... Read Full Story

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak branded as "absurd" a bid to have him arrested as he attended the governing Labour party's annual conference in Britain. Pro-Palestinian activists lodged an application in a London court for the arrest warrant over Israel's offensive in Gaza in 2008, which left more than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis dead. The request was denied by a judge after a hearing on the grounds of diplomatic immunity for Barak, according to lawyers who filed the application on Tuesday. Barak said Israeli officials should be able to move freely between countries without fearing arrest for trying to protect their own people. ... Read Full Story

Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak paid a private visit to the World War II-era Nazi German Auschwitz-Birkenau death camps Thursday, the Auschwitz museum said. Accompanied by his wife, Barak visited part of the museum devoted to the Holocaust as well as buildings housing the former Auschwitz camp's infamous crematoria and gas chambers, said a statement from the museum in Oswiecim, southern Poland. Leading a small delegation, the Israeli official then visited the Birkenau camp, located some three kilometres (1.8 miles) from the Auschwitz site. Barak laid a floral tribute and sang the Israeli national anthem with others present in front of a monument honouring ... Read Full Story

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak was quoted on Thursday as saying he does not view Iran as a threat to the existence of the Jewish state, a view that would seem to depart from Israeli statements of the recent past. Israel's mass-circulation Yedioth Ahronoth daily quoted Barak, the head of Israel's center-left Labour party, as saying "Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel." In response to a question about Tehran's nuclear programme which Israel has said it sees as destined to produce atomic weapons that could put its existence at risk, Barak said in an interview with the paper: ... Read Full Story