AFP
Israel tries to add to international pressure over Iran's nuclear program
Date: Monday September 13
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israel sought to ratchet up the pressure on Iran by claiming its arch enemy could be in a position next year to develop nuclear weapons without outside help, as a UN watchdog scrutinized Tehran's atomic program.
The head of Israeli military intelligence, General Aharon Zeevi, said the next six months would be crucial for Iran to position itself as a would-be nuclear power.
"The next six months will determine if Iran will achieve in the spring of 2005 a non-conventional capability in the sphere of nuclear research and development," he said in remarks broadcast by public radio.
"In other words, it will no longer require external assistance to acquire an unconventional capability.
"This does not mean that it will have a bomb in 2005. It means that it will have all the means at its disposal to build a bomb."
The comments appeared designed to add to the pressure on Iran as the United States and Europe appeared close to agreement at an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors meeting over setting a deadline for Tehran to allay suspicions it is secretly making atomic weapons.
Iran insists that its atomic programme is purely peaceful and designed to meet its energy needs.
An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said that the government wanted to see sanctions imposed if Iran did not abandon its ambitions to develop a nuclear arsenal.
Israel itself refuses to confirm it has a nuclear arsenal but is estimated to possess some 200 warheads. Unlike Iran, it is not subject to IAEA inspections as it has not signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"We hope that sanctions will be imposed by the United Nations' Security Council if Iran refuses to comply," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The most important thing is that pressures be continuously exerted rather than occasionally."
"If pressures fail, Israel will find ways to defend itself," he said, without further elaborating.
However such comments inevitably raise the spectre of a pre-emptive strike by Israel against Iran in an echo of its 1981 bombing of Iraq's Osirak nuclear facility. Iran has promised to retaliate against such a move.
In a speech on Sunday, army chief of staff Moshe Yaalon said Israel would "have to reassess our position" if the international community failed to deal with Iran.
Israel has long claimed that the Islamic republic is using supplies from Russia, which undertook the building of Iran's first nuclear plant, for military ends.
But the Jewish state failed to convince Russia's visiting Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week to end Moscow's nuclear cooperation with Iran.
Lavrov deemed the cooperation did not represent any "specific threat."
Iran has come to be viewed by Israel as its biggest threat since the downfall of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's regime in Baghdad.
The two countries have been engaged in a technological battle over the last few months with the Jewish state recording a partial success with its Arrow II anti-missile defense system, destined, among other things, to stop a possible Iranian strike.
Iran, for its part, tested a new version of its medium-range Shahab-3 missile which could technically reach Israel's territory.
SOURCE
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