" 'Unavoidable' attack on Iran looms, says Israeli minister"
by Haroon Siddique and agencies
- Friday June 6 2008
On the Web at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jun/06/israel.iran
An Israeli minister has said an attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses to halt its alleged weapons programme.
In the most explicit threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, "would disappear before Israel does".
"If Iran continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Mofaz, who is also Israel's transport minister, said in comments published today by the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
"Attacking Iran in order to stop its nuclear plans will be unavoidable."
Iranian-born Mofaz is a former army chief and defence minister. He is a member of Olmert's security cabinet and leads regular strategic coordination talks with the US state department.
Iran denies trying to build nuclear weapons and has defied western pressure to abandon uranium enrichment.
The leadership in Tehran has threatened that if attacked the country will retaliate against Israel - believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal - and American targets in the region.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map since becoming president. On Monday, he said Israel was "about to die and will soon be erased from the geographical scene".
Olmert met the US president, George Bush, on Wednesday to discuss concerns over Iran. The Israeli prime minister, who is being pressured to resign over a corruption scandal, has said that Iran's nuclear threat "must be stopped by all possible means".
Israeli planes bombed Syria in September, destroying what the US administration said was a partly built nuclear reactor using North Korean help. Syria denied having any such facility. UN inspectors announced this week that they would be visiting Syria to investigate the American claim.
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