President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Photo: wiki commons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to meet U.S. President Barack Obama later this month in Washington D.C. ahead of the Israeli leader’s address at the United Nations General Assembly, in New York City.

At the start of Tuesday’s cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that he would focus on Iran during their meeting, stressing four steps to be taken to assure the Islamic Republic does not obtain nuclear breakout capability: halting all uranium enrichment; removing all enriched uranium; closing the Qom uranium enrichment facility; and stopping the plutonium track.

“Only a combination of these four steps will constitute an actual stopping of the nuclear program, and until all four of these measures are achieved, the pressure on Iran must be increased and not relaxed, and certainly not eased,” Netanyahu told his Cabinet.

Netanyahu also addressed the situation in Syria whose governing regime has promised to relinquish control of its chemical weapons in order to avoid a U.S. military strike.

“I believe that the events of recent weeks have confirmed the assumptions upon which we have been acting: a recalcitrant state that develops or acquires weapons of mass destruction is certainly likely to use them. It is possible to say that ultimately it will use them,” he said, adding, ” Only a credible military threat can allow diplomacy or other steps to effect a halt to this armament process.”