LONDON, Sept 16, (Agencies): Israel will be compelled to attack Iran’s nuclear sites if Western powers cannot agree crippling sanctions against Tehran by the end of the year, a former Israeli deputy defence minister said on Wednesday. Ephraim Sneh, who holds no position in the current Israeli government and was speaking in his personal capacity, told Reuters it was not clear the United States and European Union had the decisiveness to take such steps, which should include tougher banking and oil curbs, by year’s end. “We cannot live under the shadow of an Iran with nuclear weapons,” he said in an interview on a visit to Britain. “By the end of the year, if there is no agreement on crippling sanctions aimed at this regime, we will have no choice.” “This is the very, very last resort. But ironically it is our best friends and allies who are pushing us into a corner where we would have no option but to do it.”

“I wonder if they will do it (a tougher sanctions regime) quickly enough. If not, we are compelled to take action.” Sneh, a retired brigadier-general, is a former member of parliament’s defence and intelligence committees. As deputy defence minister, he held responsibility for Iran. Sneh’s visit was facilitated by The Israel Project, a privately-funded media organisation that seeks to explain Israel’s security position in the region and has arranged news conferences for serving Israeli officials overseas. Iran is a nuclear power and it will not tolerate threats from world powers when they discuss Tehran’s package of proposals on October 1, a top aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadine-jad told AFP in an interview. Ali Akbar Javanfekr, media advisor to Ahmadinejad, also said that accepting the Islamic republic as a nuclear power was the “first step” towards normalising relations between Tehran, Washington and the West. “Iran is a nuclear power. We won’t accept any threats during the negotiations or even after. We want negotiations based on logic and international laws,” Javanfekr said in an wide-ranging interview at his Tehran office late on Tuesday.

“They have to accept a nuclear Iran and have to negotiate with a nuclear Iran.” Iran and representatives of six world powers — the United States, Britain, Russia, France, China and Germany — are to meet on October 1, probably in Turkey, to discuss Tehran’s proposals aimed at allaying concerns over its nuclear programme. The United States, Israel, and other world powers suspect Tehran is making an atomic bomb under the guise of a civilian nuclear programme. The Islamic republic denies the charge. The six powers — known as the P5+1 — had given Tehran a late September deadline for holding talks and had warned that a failure to do so would lead to further sanctions.
Iran is already under three sets of UN sanctions slapped for its refusal to abandon the sensitive uranium enrichment programme, the process which produces nuclear fuel or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb.
Javanfekr said Iran’s nuclear programme was in accordance with international laws.
“What we want is that they (world powers) respect our nuclear rights and also other rights,” he said. “This can be the first step towards normalising relations with US and the West.”

Weapons
French intelligence agencies are certain that Iran is hiding a nuclear weapons programme, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday.
“We cannot let Iran acquire nuclear” weapons because it would also be a threat to Israel, Sarkozy said during a meeting at the Elysee presidential palace with lawmakers from his conservative UMP party.
“It is a certainty to all of our secret services. Iran is working today on a nuclear (weapons) programme,” he said.
The French leader also said he would not “shake the hand of someone who wants to wipe Israel off the map”, referring to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
US President Barack Obama and his French counterpart have discussed ways to bring Iran “into compliance” with UN resolutions on its nuclear program ahead of diplomatic talks, the White House said.
“The two leaders discussed the status of diplomatic efforts to bring Iran into compliance with its international obligations on its nuclear program,” a statement said after Obama spoke by telephone with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
The call came ahead of an Oct 1 meeting between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany that is set to test Tehran’s readiness to discuss concerns over its nuclear program, which Western governments and Israel suspect is a cover to build an atomic bomb.

Iran has agreed new terms of cooperation with the UN atomic watchdog regarding the agency’s investigation into Tehran’s nuclear activities, a top Iranian official said here Tuesday.
But the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, declined to say what the new cooperation would entail.
A source close to the International Atomic Energy Agency told AFP that nothing substantially new had been agreed between the two sides.
“Nothing new has been agreed,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Salehi said: “We managed to come to an agreement to set a new framework for deeper cooperation for the future.”
When pressed on what form that new cooperation would take, Salehi refused to elaborate.
“Details will be revealed at the proper time. We hope we will be witnessing in the future improved cooperation. We think the international environment is also very conducive vis-a-vis this issue,” Salehi said.
The IAEA itself refused to comment on Salehi’s remarks, following the talks with agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

Concerns
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Tuesday that Iran must answer “head on” concerns about its nuclear program at talks in two weeks even though Tehran has so far ignored such appeals.
Clinton told reporters here that the point of an Oct 1 meeting between Iran and the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany is to test Tehran’s readiness to discuss such concerns.
“We have made clear to the Iranians that any talks we participate in must address the nuclear issue head on. It cannot be ignored,” the chief US diplomat said during a press conference with Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez.
“Iran says it has a number of issues it wishes to discuss with us but what we are concerned about is discussing with them the questions surrounding their nuclear program and ambitions,” she added.
Clinton conceded that it is difficult to predict what will emerge from the talks when she was asked how Washington could agree to them without any Iranian commitment to discuss its own nuclear program.
“The point is to meet and explain to the Iranians face to face the choices Iran has and to see whether Iran is prepared to engage with us around its nuclear program,” Clinton said.

Arrest
Iran has arrested the grandchildren of leading dissident cleric Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, and the children of another prominent reformist cleric, press reports said on Wednesday.
The move comes after Montazeri on Monday called on leading Shiite clerics to end their silence over a crackdown on massive street demonstrations that followed disputed June presidential polls.
The opposition, which has alleged widescale fraud and has refused to recognise President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election, has called for continued protests.
“My three sons were arrested on Monday by people who came to our door with a warrant issued by the Special Court for Clergy in Qom,” the cleric’s son Ahmad Montazeri was quoted as saying by the reformist Etemad newspaper.
He said that the children of Ayatollah Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, who heads a pro-reform group of Qom scholars, have also been arrested, as well as another member of the group, identified only as Ayatollah Nazem.

The young men detained are in their 20s, Montazeri said.
Iran has replaced a reformist, pro-opposition cleric with a hard-liner to lead the prayer service on a key anti-Israel day this week, according to a state radio report Wednesday.
The announcement is a blow to Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful former president who sided with the opposition in Iran’s post-election turmoil.
It is also an apparent move to sideline Rafsanjani ahead of anti-government rallies on Quds Day, called for by opposition activists. Authorities have warned they would crack down heavily on any anti-government protests on the occasion, which usually falls on the last Friday of the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Rafsanjani traditionally holds the sermon on Quds Day — an annual event that showcases Iran’s anti-Israeli stance and is marked by government-organized rallies in support of the Palestinians and against Israel. Quds is Arabic for Jerusalem.

Rally
Three leading figures in Iran’s opposition including a former president say they will join a pro-Palestinian mass rally on Friday amid warnings not to turn it into a protest against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who was runner-up to Ahmadinejad in June’s disputed presidential election and another defeated reformist candidate, cleric Mehdi Karroubi, have all said they will attend the annual Quds Day march.
It will be the first mass gathering in the streets of Tehran since July 9 when thousands of demonstrators defied government warnings and staged a march to commemorate the anniversary of bloody student unrest in 1999.

In the weeks following the disputed June 12 poll, thousands of people took to the streets in protest at Ahmadinejad’s re-election which the opposition charged was rigged, and some 4,000 were arrested in the ensuing crackdown.
“Palestine is the symbol of oppression... and we should honour this great day that is the eternal heritage of Imam Khomeini,” the ILNA news agency quoted an unidentified official at Khatami’s office as saying, referring to the founder of the Islamic republic.
 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will address Iran’s annual Quds Day rally on Friday which will be followed by a hardline cleric leading Muslim prayers at Tehran university, Fars news agency said on Wednesday.
Iran organises pro-Palestinian marches each year in Tehran and across the country with the Quds (Jerusalem) Day march being held on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Besides staunch supporters of Ahmadinejad, the president’s rivals — Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi and former president Mohammad Khatami, who all reject his re-election — also plan to attend the march.