WASHINGTON, DC: Iran is moving “closer and closer” to building a nuclear weapon and Israel may have to act before the United States does, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned yesterday.
“They’re edging up to the red line. They haven’t crossed it yet,” Netanyahu said on CBS News’s Face the Nation.
“They’re getting closer and closer to the bomb. And they have to be told in no uncertain terms that that will not be allowed to happen.”
Netanyahu went on to say that Israel had a more narrow timetable than Washington, implying it may have to take unilateral action to halt Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.
“Our clocks are ticking at a different pace. We’re closer than the United States. We’re more vulnerable. And therefore, we’ll have to address this question of how to stop Iran, perhaps before the United States does,” he said.
Netanyahu said Tehran has been building “faster centrifuges that would enable them to jump the line, so to speak, at a much faster rate — that is, within a few weeks.”
Netanyahu said Iran’s nuclear policies were unlikely to change under its next president, moderate cleric and former nuclear negotiator Hassan Rowhani, who will assume power on August 3.
Tehran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful but the sanctions imposed over the standoff have isolated it internationally. AFP
