Post by Watchman on Feb 14, 2007 12:52:29 GMT -5
From correspondents in Jerusalem
Article from: Agence France-Presse
ISRAEL alone will have to confront the perceived nuclear threat from arch enemy Iran, the country's ultra-rightwing Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman said today.
"We will have to face the Iranians alone, because Israel cannot remain with its arms folded, waiting patiently for Iran to develop non-conventional weapons," he told public radio when asked about a possible Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear installations.
He criticised an EU report leaked to the Financial Times that said with Iran unlikely to negotiate seriously on its nuclear programme, the international community can do little to prevent Tehran from developing an atomic bomb.
"At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme," the document, drawn up by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana's staff, was quoted as saying.
"The Solana report illustrates the attitude 'we can do nothing, the Iranians will get non-conventional weapons, the international community doesn't have the means to stop the Iranians from reaching their objective,"' said Mr Lieberman.
"It is not an approach we can ourselves adopt. We can still stop Iran with sanctions in the sense that 70 per cent of the international trade of this country depends on the US, Europe and Japan," he added.
"Any surrender to Iran can only encourage the aggressiveness and unbridled aspirations of this country which wants to foist its power on the Middle East."
Iran insists its programme aims to generate nuclear energy for civilian purposes, but world powers suspect it of wanting to develop nuclear arms and last year the UN Security Council passed economic sanctions against Tehran.
Israel is considered to be the sole if undeclared nuclear weapons power in the Middle East.
It does not officially acknowledge it has an arsenal although Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appeared to do so in an apparent lapse last year.
Mr Lieberman's controversial appointment to government has seen him tasked with co-ordinating Israel's efforts to counter Iran's nuclear programme.
Defence officials reiterated yesterday that a successful test of its Hetz (Arrow) anti-missile missile system was intended as a clear message to Iran, which Israel now regards as its chief enemy.