US Secretary of Defense James Mattis landed in Israel, as part of the American top defense official’s regional tour. Secretary Mattis started his day early this morning in Tel Aviv, where he was welcomed by his Israeli counterpart Lieberman. Following a meeting between the two top defense officials, Mattis reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to ensure Israel’s security, as well as that of the Jewish people.
Addressing Iran’s repeated threats against Israel, Mattis declared that the United States recognized the need to confront the Islamic Republic’s ongoing aggressions in the region. Nevertheless, Mattis noted that Iran appears to live up to the nuclear agreement, which limits Tehran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons.
“On the Iran nuclear agreement, as our Secretary of State said about three days ago, Iran appears to… the degree we can determine it and we’re pretty confident… they appear to be living up to their part of the agreement,” said Mattis.
With regard to Syria, the American top defense official revealed that Washington had proof, in which the Assad regime continues to possess chemical weapons. Mattis took the opportunity to warn Damascus to refrain from using any of those weapons, reiterating Washington’s resolve on the matter.
“The bottom line is there can be no doubt in the international community’s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all. There’s no longer any doubt. The amount of it, I don’t want to get into right now, we don’t reveal some of that detail because we don’t want to reveal how we’re finding out, but the bottom line is I can say authoritatively they have retained some, it’s a violation of the United Nations Security Council resolutions and it’s going to have to be taken up diplomatically, and they’d be ill-advised to do try to use any again. We made that very clear with our strike, so I’ll just leave it at that. They have dispersed their aircraft, no doubt they’ve dispersed their aircraft in recent days,” elaborated Mattis.
Following his meeting with Defense Minister Lieberman, Secretary Mattis traveled to Jerusalem where he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Reuven Rivlin.