JERUSALEM, Feb 2, (Agencies): Iran has enough radioactive material to produce four nuclear bombs, Israel’s chief of military intelligence, General Aviv Kochavi, asserted at a security conference on Thursday.
“Today international intelligence agencies are in agreement with Israel that Iran has close to 100 kilograms (220 pounds) of uranium enriched to 20 percent, which is enough to produce four bombs,” he told the annual Herzliya conference.
“Iran is very actively pursuing its efforts to develop its nuclear capacities, and we have evidence that they are seeking nuclear weapons,” he said.
“We estimate they would need a year from when the order is given to produce a weapon.”
Israel and much of the international community have long accused Iran of using its nuclear programme to mask a drive for weapons, a charge Tehran denies.
The Jewish state has pushed for tough sanctions against Iran and warned that it retains the option of a military strike if
necessary to prevent Tehran from obtaining atomic weapons.
Israel has the Middle East’s sole if undeclared nuclear arsenal, which international experts believe contains between 100 and 300 nuclear warheads, but has never confirmed or denied such reports.
Speaking at the same conference, Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon said Iranian nuclear facilities, believed to be underground and heavily reinforced, were not immune to attack.
“In my military experience, any site protected by humans can be penetrated by humans,” said Yaalon, a former head of Israel’s armed forces, in comments broadcast on Israeli public radio. “At the end of the day all their sites can be hit.”
“We argue that one way or another the Iranian military nuclear programme must be stopped,” he added. “Such an unconventional regime must not have an unconventional (weapons) capability.’
“A combination of tools are available to the West,” Yaalon said. “That combination must include diplomatic isolation of the regime; the second tool is economic sanctions ... and the last thing is a credible military option.”
Yaalon also referred to an Iranian military facility rocked by a deadly explosion in November, claiming Iran had been developing a missile there intended to threaten the United States.
He said the site, at Bid Ganeh, near Tehran, was conducting research and development on a missile with a range of 10,000 kms (6,213 miles) at the time of the blast, which killed at least 36 Revolutionary Guards.
It was “aimed at America, not us,” a statement from the organisers of the Herzliya Conference quoted him as saying.
Iran’s military said the explosion was the result of an accident.
The chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces said at the time that the base was used in the production of “an experimental product” that would unleash “a strong fist in the face” of the United States and Israel.
Also on Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak praised new European sanctions against Iran after talks with German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, but sidestepped questions about possible military action.
“Military plans in general are not a matter for public discourse,” Barak said. “Today we are still in a period of diplomacy and sanctions.”
“It is obvious to everyone that no option should be removed from the table and that diplomacy must be conducted intensively and urgently. The sanctions on Iran must include not only the oil sector — but also the financial system and the central bank.”
Kochavi also warned Thursday that Israel’s enemies now command “some 200,000 rockets and missiles.”
Intelligence estimates, he said, showed “one in every 10 houses in south Lebanon is a storage facility for missiles or rockets or a launch pad for devices that are increasingly accurate and destructive.”
“From Lebanon, Syria and of course from Iran, they can hit the heart of our cities, and the whole region of Tel Aviv is within their reach,” he said.
UN nuclear experts’ talks in Iran appear to have made little concrete progress, diplomats said on Thursday, setting the stage for a crucial second round this month over Western fears Tehran may aim to build atomic weapons.
Three days of discussions in Tehran which ended on Tuesday were a rare direct dialogue in the long-running international dispute, which has deepened as the West pursues a punitive embargo on Iranian oil and Tehran threatens retaliation. There are fears the confrontation could lead to a military conflict.
Senior officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency plan to return to Tehran for more discussions on Feb 21 and 22 after holding what both sides publicly described as good talks.
Herman Nackaerts, IAEA deputy director-general, told reporters on his return from Tehran on Wednesday that more work remained to be done. Asked if he was satisfied with the talks, Nackaerts said: “Yeah, we had a good trip.”
Now diplomats are trying to glean whether Nackaerts was simply being polite, or really meant the visit was fruitful.
“It does seem to us that there has just been no indication of any substantive progress during this meeting, that Iran was very focused on process and modalities and not engaging the IAEA on answering the questions or providing the information and access that they have been asking for,” one envoy said.
Another diplomat described the latest talks as “long, intensive discussions about procedures, issues, but no discussion on concrete issues”.
But he acknowledged there had been “some headway” to start substantive talks that now had to be fleshed out.
“To summarise it: talks about procedures and how to proceed and then probably next time they have to fix the issue of access,” he said.
One Western diplomat said he understood the IAEA team had sought — but not been granted — access to the Parchin military site mentioned in a report the agency drew up in November spelling out why it was concerned about Iran’s ambitions.
But he and other analysts pointed out the scheduling of a return trip to Tehran at least held out some hope of progress.
“Failure was really an option,” he said of the prospects before Nackaerts and his colleagues flew to Tehran. But he added: “They did not fail.”
The secretive, Vienna-based IAEA would not comment officially on the visit beyond a formal statement issued on Wednesday in which Director General Yukiya Amano said: “The Agency is committed to intensifying dialogue. It remains essential to make progress on substantive issues.”
Difficulties
American sanctions on Iran pose difficulties for Iraq because of its close economic ties with the Islamic republic, so Baghdad plans to seek a waiver from the US, the government spokesman told AFP.
The United States, European Union and others have ramped up sanctions to target Iran’s oil industry and central bank in an effort to pressure Tehran over its nuclear programme, which the West suspects is part of a secret drive to build an atomic bomb.
“We have a huge relation financially between the private sectors” of “Iraq and Iran, as Iran is the main supplier for many of the foodstuff and the other commodities here in Iraq,” spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said in an interview in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
Trade between Iraq and Iran is in the billions of dollars and also includes Iraqi government purchases, Dabbagh said, noting that Iranian exports to Iraq range from electricity and fuel to food and various other commodities.
“It is not possible for Iraq to follow such sanctions,” Dabbagh said. “We are looking for our own interests.”
“In a few days we are going to submit a request to the United States to exempt us.”
The US embassy in Baghdad on Thursday declined to comment on the issue, as it had not received a request from Iraq.
Dabbagh said that Baghdad wants “to follow the international regulations” and had abided by other sanctions on Iran, but that new restrictions on dealing with the Iranian central bank — which he said is involved in trade transactions — were especially problematic.
“We cannot stop our trade relation with Iran,” he said, and as Iraq has some $60 billion in reserves in the United States, “any penalties (are) going to affect us.”
Iraq and Iran fought a bloody war from 1980 to 1988, but relations between the two countries have warmed considerably since the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
Dabbagh also said that Iraq is concerned about tension between the US and Iran, and noted that it would be among the most affected countries if the Straight of Hormuz was shut to shipments of crude.
“We are worried, definitely, from the situation and the tension... between Iran and the United States,” Dabbagh said.
“Unfortunately, Iraq till now did not build up the infrastructure which could diversify the export of oil. Till now the pipeline with Syria is not operative, the pipeline with Turkey is still in (a) low capacity,” he said.
Greece on Thursday said it was looking for alternative options to counterbalance the effects of a planned European Union embargo on Iranian oil imports on its struggling economy.
“Greece has expressed certain concerns regarding the effects of taking such measures on European economies,” foreign ministry spokesman Grigoris Delavekouras told a news briefing.
“The competent authorities in Greece have examined, and continue to examine, possible supply from other sources,” he said, without elaborating.
After weeks of fraught talks on an embargo which could hurt debt-straddled European Union nations, EU ministers last month agreed on an immediate ban on oil imports and a gradual phase-out of existing contracts between now and July 1.
Crisis-hit Greece imports around a third of its oil from Iran at advantageous credit terms. Italy and Spain are also major Iranian oil importers.
In the toughest action yet against Iran’s ability to fund its nuclear programme, the EU outlawed petrochemical imports and investments and banned the sale of gold, diamonds and other precious metals.
The EU and the United States seek to force Tehran to return to negotiations amid concerns it is inching ever closer to building a nuclear bomb.