Israel: Iran sanctions haven’t worked
“Iran has been exposed for being the most irresponsible power on earth today. The one that exports terror with abandon is murdering people and breaking all the rules,” Netanyahu told reporters during a one-day visit to Cyprus. “For such a regime to have nuclear weapons is something of enormous concern for the United States and for Israel,” he said.
He was speaking after Israel accused Iran of unleashing a terror campaign in world capitals following three explosions in Bangkok on Tuesday and attacks on Israeli embassy staff in India and Georgia on Monday.
Thailand charged two Iranians in what Thai intelligence officials said was a botched attempt to attack Israeli diplomats.
The Bangkok blasts came just 24 hours after an Israeli embassy car blew up in New Delhi, seriously wounding a woman diplomat. On the same day, police in Tbilisi found another bomb attached to an embassy car which was defused before it could detonate.
“This regime was born taking over an embassy, it’s now attacking diplomats far and wide,” Netanyahu said, referring to the storming of the US embassy in Tehran in 1979. He said the Jewish state had information “of an ongoing effort, an attempt by Iran to conduct terrorism in many parts of the world. Happily so far this has not caused any loss of life.”
“I think the US and any other responsible country in the world ought to be concerned about the pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran,” he said a day after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled what was billed as its first domestically produced 20% enriched uranium.
Iran has been slapped with four sets of UN sanctions and a raft of unilateral US and EU sanctions designed to halt a programme the West fears masks a drive for atomic weapons.
Tehran denies this charge, saying its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful. “I hope sanctions work, but so far they haven’t worked and we’ve been seeing a regime that breaks all the rules. They have absolutely no respect for international norms,” Netanyahu said.
“They send children into minefields, they blow up airplanes, they have suicide bombers, they send tens of thousands of rockets to our cities and our towns,” the Israeli premier said.
“Such a regime obviously should not have atomic bombs and I believe the international community is becoming aware by day of what it means to have Iran continue its programmes.”
Earlier, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak echoed Netahyahu’s comments on sanctions.
“These (current) sanctions ... might not suffice to compel the Iranian leadership to take decisions so we feel that there is still a need for more effective and paralysing sanctions on Iran,” Japan’s Kyodo news agency quoted him after a meeting with his Japanese counterpart Naoki Tanaka.
But Barak also accused Tehran of “exaggerating” progress in its nuclear programme. “The Iranians are continuing to progress but what they presented yesterday was a show, partly to dissuade the world from going after them,” he said.
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