Steinitz: Too late for negotiations with Iran
"There is no more time to hold negotiations," Steinitz, who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with the Israel Hayom daily published on Friday.
The United States and its allies suspect Iran is working towards a nuclear weapons capability despite Tehran's insistence that its atomic program has only peaceful aims.
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"If the Iranians continue to run, in another half a year they will have bomb capability," he said.
Israel has dismissed overtures to the West by new Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and his pledge in an interview on U.S. television that Iran would never develop nuclear weapons.
"One must not be fooled by the Iranian president's fraudulent words," Netanyahu's office said in a statement on Thursday. "The Iranians are spinning in the media so that the centrifuges can keep on spinning."
Both Israel and the United States have hinted at possible military action to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran should sanctions and diplomacy fail to curb its atomic programme.
But Steinitz said a phrase used often in the past by U.S. and Israeli leaders - that "all options are on the table" in confronting Iran - was not enough to persuade Tehran to stop its uranium enrichment.
"I am sure that had there been three aircraft carriers with an American declaration that in the event the Iranians do not honour the Security Council decisions, the Americans are expected to attack by 2013, they would have acted differently," he said.
"Today the Iranians take into account that they have room to manoeuvre, and that is the most dangerous thing," he said.
Steinitz goes on to say that Israel has learned a lesson from Syria. Sounds like we're going to be going it alone....
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, Iranian nuclear threat, Israeli attack on Iran, Yuval Steinitz
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:05 PM
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