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Israel will have to act on Iran if UN can't
By Louis Charbonneau
03/08/06 -- BERLIN (Reuters) - If the U.N. Security Council is
incapable of taking action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear
weapons, Israel will have no choice but to defend itself, Israel's
defense minister said on Wednesday.
Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz was asked whether Israel was ready to
use military action if the Security Council proved unable to act
against what Israel and the West believe is a covert Iranian nuclear
weapons program.
"My answer to this question is that the state of Israel has the
right give all the security that is needed to the people in Israel.
We have to defend ourselves," Mofaz told Reuters after a meeting
with his German counterpart Franz Josef Jung.
Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons and says it is only interested
in the peaceful generation of electricity. It has also threatened to
retaliate if Israel or the United States were to bomb any of its
nuclear facilities.
In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor to prevent
Saddam Hussein from getting nuclear weapons. Saddam's covert atom
bomb program continued until U.N. inspectors dismantled it after the
1991 Gulf War, but the Israeli strike set progress back many years.
"The Israeli approach is that the U.S. and the European countries
should lead the issue of the Iranian nuclear program to the table of
the U.N. Security Council, asking for sanctions. And I hope the
sanctions will be effective," Mofaz said.
Mofaz, who was born in Iran, added that Israel believed the
15-nation Security Council should grant the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N.'s Vienna-based nuclear watchdog,
sweeping inspection powers so that it can smoke out any secret
nuclear arms-related activities in Iran.
"We need to have very deep and large inspections within all the
nuclear locations in Iran because Iran has two nuclear programs --
one is a covered one and the second is uncovered," he said.
The Iranian delegation to an IAEA board of governors meeting in
Vienna issued a statement earlier warning that the United States
could feel "harm and pain" if the Security Council took up the issue
of Tehran's nuclear fuel research and vowed never to abandon its
atomic program.
At a news conference with Mofaz, Jung told reporters Germany was
already discussing with the five permanent Security Council members
-- Russia, China, the United States, Britain and France -- what the
council could do to prevent Tehran getting the bomb.
"Everything must be done to ensure that Iran does not acquire
nuclear weapons," Jung said.
A senior diplomat from one of the "EU3" said earlier that the
Security Council would probably begin discussing Iran next week and
hoped to issue a "presidential statement" urging Iran to suspend its
uranium enrichment program and cooperate with the IAEA.
© Reuters 2006
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