IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz will leave Thursday night for the United States and Canada for talks aimed at increasing coordination regarding Iran.

Gantz was originally scheduled to leave for the US earlier in the week and to speak at the Friends of the IDF gala dinner in New York. He decided to postpone the visit due to the continued rocket fire from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel.

Gantz will open his trip in Canada, where he will meet with Chief of the Defense Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk and Defense Minister Peter MacKay.

Gantz will then head to Washington where he will meet next week with US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Martin Dempsey as well as with other senior Pentagon and administration officials.

It will be Gantz’s first trip to the US since his appointment as IDF chief of staff last February. Between 2007 and 2009, Gantz served as the IDF attaché to the US and Canada.

Gantz’s visit comes on the heels of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s meeting in Washington DC last week with US President Barack Obama which focused on the Iranian nuclear threat.

Media reports have speculated that Netanyahu and Obama discussed possible US military assistance to Israel ahead of a potential IDF strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Defense sources said that Gantz’s visit will be a continuation of those talks aimed at increasing US-Israeli military cooperation in light of the growing threats Israel faces in the region. (© 1995- 2011, The Jerusalem Post 03/16/12)