Iranian President Hassan Rouhani began a state visit to Turkey today (Monday), the first by an Iranian head of state since 2008.

Rouhani was received by Turkish President Abdullah Gul at the presidential palace in Ankara with a special welcoming ceremony. He and Gul are meeting with other Turkish leaders at the palace for bilateral talks.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined the gathering, which preceeded the start of direct talks in Geneva between the United States and Iran over Tehran’s galloping nuclear development program.

On the agenda is the expansion of trade and other ways to establish closer economic and political ties, according to the Turkish Al Hurriyet news agency. Officials from the two nations are also discussing the raging civil war in Syria, which borders both countries and which has affected the relations between the two.

Iran has armed and backed President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces have periodically shelled villages in Turkey. In addition, Syrian military forces have often fired at civilians as they crossed the border into Turkey to escape the violence in their homeland.

The Lebanon-based Hezbollah guerrilla fighting force is among the most heavily armed in the region, according to IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who told the 2014 IDC Herzliya Conference on Monday that Israel is facing a lethal threat.

Israel’s military chief said just Israel and the top five nations of the world currently have more firepower today than Hezbollah. According to Gantz, the only nations more heavily armed than Hezbollah – which is supplied by Iran – are “the U.S., China, Russia, Israel, France, [and] the UK.”

It was a sobering moment for the audience at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, who heard that Israel is facing a new type of threat, one that originates from underground. Terrorists in Lebanon and in Gaza use bunkers, where they store their arms – in much the same way Israelis used underground facilities to produce bullets during the British Mandate to prepare for the 1948 War of Independence.

Attendees also heard the army chief explain that Israel’s neighbor to the north, Syria, is disintegrating. Regardless of what happens on the other side of the border, none of the options will be particularly good for Israel, Gantz explained. He added that “decades of conflict” are likely to continue in Syria, “perhaps more.” Hezbollah is actively involved in that war, fighting to defend President Bashar al-Assad; the experience gained in that fight may well aid the terrorist organization later in a future war against Israel, Gantz warned.

Moreover, a second front is again developing in the south with Gaza, where mid-to-long range missiles have again been stockpiled for a future war with Israel as well. Both the ruling Hamas terror organization and its allied Islamic Jihad terrorist group are fully backed by Iran, as is Hezbollah. All three would function as proxies for Iran, which has not given up its dream of annihilating Israel.

Nor has Iran abandoned its goal of developing a nuclear weapon of mass destruction, Gantz said.

Israel will take whatever action is deemed appropriate to neutralize that existential threat against the Jewish State, he said.

Prime Minister Netanyahu concluded his visit to Japan with a call on Japan to address Iran’s nuclear program with the same seriousness it treat’s North Korea’s.

“We are interested in peace and stability throughout the world. We see a danger and a challenge posed by a rogue state arming itself with nuclear weapons. In your case it’s North Korea and we obviously sympathize and understand the predicament facing you. We are faced with such a rogue state in the form of Iran and its quest to develop nuclear weapons… Clearly the Ayatollahs (in Iran) cannot be trusted and if the international community wants to avoid the specter of nuclear terrorism, they must assure that Iran, the foremost sponsor of terrorism on the planet, not have the capability to develop nuclear weapons,” said Netanyahu.

Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas finally took off the mask and formally refused Tuesday to meet with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Israeli Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz broke the news to the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in an evening speech.

Earlier this week, the State Department confirmed that Kerry and Abbas were set to meet in London. Apparently the Secretary became desperate enough to come back to Israel for another attempt at reviving the dead-on-arrival “framework talks.”

He even offered to travel to the PA capital of Ramallah. But Abbas rejected the offer, leaving Kerry to meet with Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

“Abbas rejected Kerry’s framework and refused to meet him .. Kerry flew back the next morning without any meeting,” Steinitz told his audience.

“No one should tell us that we need peace in order to survive, exist and flourish,” he said. “We will survive. Israel will survive as a democratic Jewish state whether our neighbors will finally agree to accept it and make peace with us or not.”

He added that Abbas had always said he would never recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state – just as the Hamas terrorist organization that controls Gaza has as well. Last month Abbas signed a deal with Hamas to create a new Palestinian Authority unity government.

Inasmuch as Hamas is formally committed to Israel’s destruction and is backed and funded by Iran, the move effectively ends any option for peace with the PA at this time.

IDF forces have beefed up their lines along the roads in Judea and Samaria, particularly along Highway 60, where the number of road terror attacks on Israeli motorists has increased dramatically over the past year.

The United Nations is considering the possibility that Iran just might have figured out how to avoid international sanctions in order to continue that country’s drive to develop nuclear weapons.

According to a confidential new report by a U.N. panel that compliance with international sanctions, Tehran appears to be using its petrochemical industry as a cover to smuggle forbidden items into the Islamic Republic for use in the nuclear program, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

According to Reuters, Iran has apparently slowed import of forbidden substances in recent months, but added that there might be a possibility of subterfuge, “rang(ing) from concealing titanium tubes inside steel pipes to using its petrochemical industry as a cover to obtain items for a heavy-water nuclear reactor.”

The report comes as the international community is preparing for a new round of talks aimed at politely asking Tehran to abandon its nuclear program. Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has warned for nearly 20 years that Iran was marching towards nuclear weapons capabilities, but the international community has been slow to respond.

According to Reuters, Iranian duplicity includes a set of titanium tubes hidden inside a shipment of stainless steel pipes manufactured in and shipped from China.

The report recommends that governments exercise greater vigilance over freight-forwarding firms, which often appear as the ordering party on shipments of items destined for Iran. While such practices are not necessarily illegal, the panel says Tehran could use them to conceal final destinations or uses.

“In three cases inspected under the current mandate, names of freight forwarders were recorded on shipping documentation in the place of consignors or consignees,” the report said.

“The Panel notes that the International Freight Forwarders Association (FIATA) has issued a notice to its members warning about the increased use of counterfeit Bills of Lading in connection with shipments to and from Iran,” it added.

PETROCHEMICAL COVER

Another example of Iranian deception is efforts the Ayatollahs have made for the past two years to obtain German and Indian valves for the heavy-water reactor at Arak, a plant that has proven to be a major sticking point in Tehran’s nuclear negotiations. Reuters notes that one investigation refers to Iran’s  procurement of 1,767 valves for Modern Industries Technique Company (MITEC) from 2007 through 2011. According to the experts’ 2013 report, 1,163 valves appear to have reached the company.

If the Arak reactor goes online in its current form, it will yield significant amounts of weapons-grade plutonium, but the document merely explains how it would produce radioisotopes that could be used in “radiation processing, radiation therapy, radiography, scanning and tracer purposes and other peaceful applications of nuclear energy”.

Iran has warned for years that the Islamic Republic views “wiping Israel off the map” as s a strategic goal for the country. To that end, Iran has financed years of terror attacks against Israeli civilians via its financing of the Hamas terror gang. In addition, Iran is suspected in a string of terror attacks against Jews around the world, most notably the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina that killed 85 people and wounded over 300.

In addition, Prime Minister Netanyahu has warned Western leaders that it is a mistake to pretend that Iran would refrain from attacking Western targets in Europe and North America if given the opportunity.

However, much of the international community has rejected Israel’s warnings. President Barack Obama has pledged repeatedly not to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons “on (my) watch,” but also refused to respond to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s question about what his administration would consider a “red line” that would prompt an American military strike.

He’s ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-c-c-c-k . . . . Well, sort of.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is set to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Thursday in London.  State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki confirmed the meeting at a briefing Monday on Capitol Hill.

“While the door remains open to a peace process, the purpose of the meeting is to discuss our ongoing relationship with the Palestinians,” she said in a curt statement. “As he has throughout the process, Secretary Kerry will reiterate a call he has made to both sides to maintain restraint and refrain from steps that would be unhelpful.”

Last week American special envoy to the Middle East Martin Indyk took care to blame both sides for the failed nine-month talks. He was especially careful to equate municipal and home maintenance with a unilateral attempt to establish sovereignty in the international arena.

For Israel’s portion, Indyk pointed to ‘settlement building’ – the endless international euphemism for basic repairs and general construction by private Israeli citizens and also by Israeli local authorities within the municipal bounds of towns or neighborhoods in areas won during the 1967 Six Day War.

The Palestinian Authority, he said, should not have signed on to membership in 15 international conventions and agencies – a direct violation of the agreement with which the failed talks began in the first place.

Abbas backed out of the talks when Israel refused to free the last of four groups of terrorist prisoners on schedule, after 78 had already been released. Israel’s government balked over the composition of the group, which included at least 20 Israeli Arabs, rather than PA Arabs. Since no progress at all had been made in the prior eight months of talks, and Abbas had not bothered to show up in person to the table for months, Israel chose to wait and see whether the final month would bring any change – or see if the PA would at least extend the talks in exchange for freeing the last group and possibly releasing more prisoners as well.

But Abbas refused.  Instead, a day later he signed a flurry of international conventions that had obviously already been prepared and ready to go. It was clear the strategy had been planned – the PA was simply waiting until the last group of terrorists were freed.

Israel formally ended the talks on April 24 when Abbas signed a unity pact with the Hamas terrorist organization that rules Gaza. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel’s right to exist and is committed to its destruction, a core principle in its founding charter. The group is backed, armed and generously funded by Iran.

The current agreement calls for the deployment of 3,000 PA government paramilitary police in Gaza, under the command of Hamas. Those forces were trained, armed and equipped by the United States armed forces — ostensibly to “fight terrorism” in Judea and Samaria in preparation for the establishment of a peaceful “two state solution” with Israel.

Last year, the Ramallah-based PA government received approximately $440 million in U.S. foreign aid, for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2013. The figure was taken from a Congressional Research Service report quoted by Reuters.

Under American law, no U.S. funds may reach Hamas, nor “any entity effectively controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of which Hamas is a member, or that results from an agreement with Hamas and over which Hamas exercises undue influence.”

But the Ramallah government in Samaria has for years been sending money to Gaza. Allegedly it was sent to cover the salaries of PA civil service workers. The same government still pays generous monthly stipends to Arab terrorists serving prison terms in Israeli jails.

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An Israeli man charged in the United States with selling arms to Iran was arrested at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

The man was arrested Monday at the request of the United States and reportedly was attempting to flee the country. He is expected to be extradited to the U.S., where he will be charged with illegal trade with Iran, exporting military equipment without a permit and money laundering, Haaretz reported.

The Israeli citizen, who was not named, was indicted last week in a U.S. court in Connecticut for illegally exporting spare parts for combat aircraft to Iran in 2012 and 2013, as well as illegally exporting military equipment from the U.S. and money laundering, according to Haaretz.

He faces up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

He was arrested in Israel a decade ago for trading with Iran, according to Israel’s Channel 2, and previously served time in a U.S. prison.