Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu speaking at the United Nations. Photo: screenshot.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in France today for a two-day visit.

He is expected to meet with French President Francois Hollande, Prime Minister Jean Marc Ayrault and Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Much of the discussion is supposed to focus on Iran’s nuclear program.

The AFP reported that a source close to the Israeli prime minister said that Netanyahu’s trip to France is the “first opportunity to talk with President Hollande, and he hopes to build a good working relationship with the French leader.”

The AFP report also quoted a senior Israeli official on condition of anonymity that “France is a very important country in the Western alliance which is dealing with the Iranian bomb.”

“Netanyahu clearly wants to talk about the Iranian issue with Francois Hollande especially after his speech at the UN at the end of September,” the source also told the AFP.

A report on Tuesday in the UK’s Daily Telegraph quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak as saying that an immediate crisis with Iran was averted earlier in the year when the Islamic Republic chose to use more than a third of its medium-enriched uranium for civilian purposes.

He told the Telegraph that it “allows contemplating delaying the moment of truth by eight to ten months.”

Prime Minster Netanyahu is scheduled to visit Toulouse on Thursday for a memorial service for the four Jewish victims shot dead by an Islamist at the Ohr Torah School.