Iran intends to expand its nuclear capabilities while the United States and other Western powers attempt to persuade Tehran to halt its disputed atomic activities, Israel's top intelligence official said yesterday (see GSN, March 6).
Israel, the United States and some European nations have expressed concern that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapon-usable technologies, but Tehran has maintained that its nuclear ambitions are strictly peaceful.
"Iran continues to stockpile hundreds of kilograms of low-level enriched uranium and hopes to use the dialogue with the West to buy the time it requires in order to move towards an ability to manufacture a nuclear bomb," Gen. Amos Yadlin told Israeli cabinet members (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2008).
"Iran has crossed the technological threshold. Reaching a military-grade nuclear capability is a question of synchronizing its strategy with the production of a nuclear bomb," he said.
Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu added, "Iran is seeking to arm itself with nuclear weapons and is the most serious threat to our existence since the [1948] war of independence." Netanyahu could become Israeli's prime minister after his strong showing in the country's February elections (Agence France-Presse/Google News, March 8).
Meanwhile, Russia defended its refusal to rule out selling a new air-defense system to Iran. The S-300 air defenses could give Iranian nuclear sites substantial protection against a potential Israeli military strike, according to experts.
"In our military technical cooperation with Iran we haven’t violated anything," Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday.
"The road towards removing those concerns lies through the more active discussion of the proposals" by the five permanent U.N. Security Council member nations and Germany, he said. The countries have offered Iran diplomatic, financial and energy benefits in exchange for halting its disputed nuclear work.
"In addition to serious, tangible economic stimuli, we need a dialogue with Iran with the involvement of all the countries in the region to ensure stable, reliable security where all countries there, including Israel, would live side to side -- side by side in peace and security. That is a very complicated issue with lots of shades of opinions and positions, but we have a clear understanding that those issues are to be dealt with and must be dealt with," Lavrov said (U.S. State Department release, March 6).