"Israel urges strong position on Iran"
TELEGRAPH (London. U.K.)
December 6, 2007
On the Web at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/06/wisrael106.xml
Article by Con Coughlin
Israel gave warning yesterday that Iran must either co-operate with the West over its uranium enrichment programme or face military action.
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Ron Prosor, Israel's newly appointed ambassador to Britain and one of his country's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, said that Teheran could enrich enough uranium to make an atomic bomb by 2009.
"At the current rate of progress Iran will reach the technical threshold for producing fissile material by 2009," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"This is a global threat and it requires a global response. It should be made clear that if Iran does not co-operate then military confrontation is inevitable. It is either co-operation or confrontation."
Mr Prosor, who served Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, as his senior adviser on Iran, said that time for resolving the nuclear issue was rapidly running out.
However, he was non-committal about the possibility of Israel launching military action.
"There needs to be full verification of what is happening in Iran," said Mr Prosor, who was speaking for the first time since his arrival in London last month.
"In Israel there is a belief that the Iranians are continuing with their nuclear weapons programme."
Mr Prosor spoke after Washington published its latest National Intelligence Assessment, compiled by the main US security agencies, which concluded that Iran had frozen its nuclear weapons programme four years ago.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday hailed the report, adding that the "truthfulness of the Iranian nation was once again proved by the ill-wishers themselves".
But Israel and its allies - including President George W Bush - remain deeply concerned that Iran is continuing to enrich uranium.
"Iran will soon be able to fully control all the elements of enrichment," explained Mr Prosor.
"From that point on, it is only a matter of time before they have a weapon."
Senior Israeli officials say they have a "zero tolerance policy" on allowing Iran to develop any sort of nuclear weapons capability.
And Mr Prosor, 49, who has been immersed in the Iran issue for more than a decade, expressed surprise over Washington's latest intelligence estimate....
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