The world is failing to draw a "clear red line" for Iran over its nuclear programs, Netanyahu told the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday.
The international community is failing to draw a "clear red line" for Iran over its nuclear program, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told the Cabinet on Sunday at the beginning of its weekly meeting.
"I think that we should speak the truth — the international community is not drawing a clear red line for Iran and Iran doesn\’t see determination from the international community to stop its nuclear program," he told Cabinet ministers.
Underscoring his concern that the world still is banking on diplomacy and sanctions while Iran brags about progress in its nuclear development, the Prime Minister pointed out, “No one stood up and no one left the hall” during anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic speeches at the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran last week.
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks against Israel but did not protest by walking out.
Prime Minister Netanyahu admitted that sanctions are hurting the Iranian economy but are not having any serious effect stopping the country’s unsupervised nuclear program, which the regime insists is for peaceful purposes.
The Netanyahu government has been punching away in public at the threat of an Iranian nuclear attack, sparking an unexpectedly strong and negative reaction from Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey, who said that an Israeli attack on Iran would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran\’s nuclear program. I don\’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it."
Netanyahu\’s comments Sunday were first since the details of a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) emerged on Thursday, AFP noted.
The report said that Iran has doubled its uranium enrichment capacity at the underground Fordo facility, in spite of UN Security Council resolutions, sanctions and talk of Israeli military action.
The UN nuclear watchdog also said that its ability to inspect the Parchin military base where it suspects Iran conducted nuclear weapons research in the past had been "significantly hampered" by a suspected sanitation.
Enriched uranium can be used for peaceful purposes but in highly concentrated levels of purity it can also be used for nuclear weapons, and multiple UN Security Council resolutions have called on Iran to suspend enrichment.
"The report confirms what I have been saying for a long time – the international sanctions may be weighing heavily on Iran\’s economy but are not hindering the advancement of Iran\’s nuclear program," Netanyahu said.
"The Iranians are using the talks with world powers to buy time to advance their nuclear program."