Israel media: Iran's tone softening

An Israeli report says Iran's tone has become "conciliatory" ahead of the Baghdad nuclear conference. Israeli paper Hareezt cites a report allegedly published on Saturday in the conservative Iranian website Botia. The paper quoted the report as saying "the chief of the Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, General Qasem Suleimani, warned Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah not to attack Israel." According to the Israeli daily, "Suleimani explained to Nasrallah that "Israel is an isolated country, and any attack on it can portray it as the victim and us as the aggressors." "Suleimani even demanded that Nasrallah explain to his followers that the road to Jerusalem does not involve arms, but preaching," the report says. However, "within a few hours the report was removed from the website, and a denial was published," the paper added. The paper also suggests the person in charge of the dialoge with the West is Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – not President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his envoys. "Saeed Jalili, Secretary General of the National Security Council, is dubbed in the local media as "the Supreme Leader's representative," the paper says to stress his decisive role in the nuclear talks. The report exemplifed the following sentences as "Iran's other conciliatory messages". "Jalili, who met with UN nuclear watchdog Yukiya Amano on Monday, said that "the International Atomic Agency must protect the rights of its members" – meaning Iran's right to develop nuclear technology for peaceful means. He repeated Khamenei's religious decree, according to which producing or using weapons of mass destruction is forbidden." The paper says Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the country's Expediency Discernment Council, called for dialogue with the U.S. in a forum. The paper comments the reported words as "speaking with the U.S., it seems, is no longer taboo." Meanwhile, The U.N. nuclear watchdog chief said on Tuesday he expected to sign a deal with Iran soon to boost its cooperation with an investigation into Tehran's atomic activity, although differences remained.