The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading global think-tank, said on Wednesday that Iran was at least two to three years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
By Jonathan Saul
Reuters
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said on Wednesday this year would be "critical" for the international community in dealing with Iran's nuclear program.
He discussed the issue during a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in Brussels, his office said in a statement, on the first visit by an Israeli defense minister to NATO's headquarters.
"2007 is the critical year for diplomatic efforts to curb Iran developing a nuclear weapon," Peretz told de Hoop Scheffer. "The international community should step up pressure on Iran."
The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions on Iran on December 23 and gave it 60 days to suspend uranium enrichment. Tehran denies pursuing the bomb and says it is developing nuclear energy only to generate electricity.
An Iranian parliamentarian said on Saturday Iran had started installing 3,000 new atomic centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment facility, although an Iranian nuclear official later denied this.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies, a leading global think-tank, said on Wednesday that Iran was at least two to three years away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon.
Peretz has called for a stepping up of sanctions on Iran.
Israel, widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, sent warplanes to bomb an atomic reactor in Iraq in 1981.
Neither Israel nor the United States has ruled out military force on Iran, although Washington says its priority is to reach a diplomatic solution.
Analysts say Israel has stepped up its cooperation with NATO in a bid to bolster defense ties with the Western military alliance in the face of arch-foe Iran's nuclear program.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
The Defense Ministry statement said Peretz and de Hoop Scheffer discussed widening and strengthening cooperation between NATO and Israel. It said Peretz had been invited to a meeting of NATO defense ministers in Spain in February.
A NATO statement added that other non-NATO ministers from countries it has formal ties with under what it calls the Mediterranean Dialogue had also been invited. Those comprise Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia as well.
