By Xinhua
Jerusalem : Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday that Iran’s nuclear program still poses a major threat to the West, rebutting a U.S. intelligence report that determined Tehran has halted its nuclear weapons program.
; According to Israeli daily Ha’aretz’s website, Olmert addressed a security conference Tuesday, saying that, “Iran was and remains dangerous, and we must continue international pressure with full force to dissuade Iran from nuclear tendencies.”
He said that Iran has no need for electricity produced by nuclear energy, doesn’t have the infrastructure to create energy for civilian purposes and does not need to act with frenzied haste to create enriched uranium unless it wants to develop nuclear weapons.
The report said Olmert praised U.S. President George W. Bush for declaring that the new intelligence report does not detract from the danger Iran poses.
On Sunday, in his first response to the U.S. report, Olmert said that Israel’s stance on the Iranian nuclear issue would not change, adding that Iran is continuing to pursue the two vital components needed for a nuclear weapons program — developing and advancing their rocket arsenal and enriching uranium.
The latest National Intelligence Estimate, the formal consensus of all 16 U.S. spy agencies, was released last Monday.
The report said that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, a stark reversal of previous intelligence assessments that Iran was actively moving towards the development of a bomb.
The U.S. and Israel accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program. Iran, which has always denied the charges, insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
The U.N. Security Council has issued two resolutions against Iran’s nuclear program since last December, but both of them failed to persuade Iran to give up uranium enrichment work.