Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said that Israel was looking to US President Donald Trump to pressure Iran into ending its efforts to gain nuclear weapons, warning that a “military option” may still be required, in an interview with Politico published on Wednesday.
Sa’ar warned that time was running out to prevent Tehran from accessing nuclear weapons, and the Islamic regime had already enriched uranium capable of producing a “couple of bombs.” If efforts to stop the regime do not succeed, it would trigger a “nuclear race in the Middle East with Egypt, Saudis, Turkey,” he said.
A quarterly UN nuclear watchdog report showed on Wednesday that Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons-grade, has jumped since Iran announced a dramatic acceleration in enrichment in December.
Two quarterly reports sent by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to member states showed that while the stock of 60% material has grown by around half, there has been no real progress on resolving long-running outstanding issues with Iran, including the unexplained presence of uranium traces found at undeclared sites.
“The significantly increased production and accumulation of highly enriched uranium by Iran, the only non-nuclear weapon state to produce such nuclear material, is of serious concern,” the IAEA said in a passage that, unusually, was included in both reports.
The stock of uranium refined to up to 60% in the form of uranium hexafluoride grew by 92.5 kg. in the past quarter to 274.8 kg, one of two confidential IAEA reports said.
That is enough, in principle, if enriched further, for six nuclear bombs, according to an IAEA yardstick.
One of the reports also spelled out the lack of progress on the outstanding issues, such as explaining the uranium traces, which the IAEA has been asking the Islamic Republic to do for years.
Iran destabilizing the Middle East
“Iran states that it has declared all of the nuclear material, activities, and locations required under its Safeguards Agreement. This is inconsistent with the agency’s assessments of the unexplained nuclear-related activities that took place at all four of the undeclared locations in Iran referred to above,” the report said.
“The agency is, therefore, at an impasse with regard to resolving these outstanding safeguards issues.”
Stressing the need to halt Tehran, which has issued multiple anti-America statements and threats to Israel, Sa’ar said the regime would destabilize the entire Middle East region. Sa’ar noted that Tehran had already dedicated a number of resources to destabilizing the region, noting Iran had already trafficked weapons and money into the West Bank.
A diplomatic path is still being pursued, he said while emphasizing that he did not believe such efforts would be fruitful.
“I think that in order to stop a nuclear Iranian program before it will be weaponized, a reliable military option should be on the table,” he said.