United Nations: Netanyahu speaks about Iran's threats, silent on Palestine
New York (AsiaNews/ Agencies) - Iran is "strong enough to defend itself and reserves its full right to retaliate with full force against any attack," said Eshagh al-Habib, Iran's deputy permanent representative to the United nations. He was responding to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu' speech, in which the Israeli leader reiterated the need for a preventive strike against the Islamic Republic's nuclear programme. Exercised his nation's right of reply, he accused Mr Netanyahu of making "baseless allegations".
Concerns about Iran's nuclear programme date back to the 1970s when the country was still under the Shah. After the takeover by Khomeini, accusations have been made that Iran plans to weaponise its nuclear programme, especially under Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. Israel, which has been Tehran's harshest critic, has threatened military action.
Iran has always denied allegations that it plans to build nuclear weapons, defending the peaceful character of its programme.
Over several years, Iran has held talks with the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as well as the 5+1 group of nations, without any results.
Last year, the IAEA released a report claiming there was evidence that Tehran's nuclear programme was also military-related.
Last March, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano expressed serious concerns that Iran might be hiding military nuclear activities, especially at its Parchin military complex, located southeast of Tehran.
In what many view as a highly theatrical address, Israel's prime minister warned that Iran was coming near a "red line" in its nuclear programme.
Holding up a cartoon-like drawing of a bomb with a fuse, Netanyahu literally drew a red line to indicate how far Israel was willing to wait before it launched a preventive attack.
"Red lines don't lead to war, red lines prevent war," he said. "Nothing could imperil the world more than a nuclear-armed Iran."
By next spring, Tehran will be able to manufacture nuclear bombs and missiles, the Israeli prime minister said. He urged UN members to stop the Iranian nuclear programme because the "hour is very late".
Netanyahu called on the United States and the European Union to set a time period to pursue their mix of talks and sanctions.
In his view, the best way to stop the Iranian nuclear programme is to impose a threshold that cannot be breached on pains of an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Netanyahu's speech comes after weeks of open disagreement with the Obama administration over Iran. Washington has remained committed to a diplomatic solution in concert with the rest of the international community.
In his address on Wednesday, the US president said, "the United States will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon" but at the same time it "wants to resolve this issue through diplomacy" even if "time is not unlimited."
Meanwhile, the Iran issue has partly obscured the Palestinian question, the other fundamental diplomatic issue for Israel, the United States and Europe.
The recognition of a Palestinian state and renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks have been at the core of exchanges between Israel and countries favourable to a Palestinian UN membership.
In his speech before the General Assembly yesterday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of a racist policy of colonisation in the Palestinian territories.
However, he insisted that there still was a final chance to save the two-state solution by making Palestine a non-member state of the United Nations.
"In our endeavour," he added, "we do not seek to delegitimise an existing state - that is Israel - but rather to assert the state that must be realised - that is Palestine."
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