The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday called for urgent world action to halt Iranian efforts to develop arms of mass destruction, saying Iran posed as great a threat to peace as Iraq.
Speaking to foreign ambassadors posted to Israel, Mr Netanyahu said that while world attention was focused on Iraq's suspected development of nonconventional weapons, "there has been very little attention at all given to threats of at least a similar magnitude taking place in Iran."
"Iran is not subject to inspections, Iran is not subject to the threat of sanctions, and therefore programmes to develop ballistic missiles and nonconventional weapons can actually proceed unimpeded," Mr Netanyahu said.
He noted that seven years after its defeat in the Gulf War, Iraq has been severely weakened militarily by UN sanctions and arms inspections but can still pose a threat to surrounding nations.
"It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to understand what would happen if Iran, which has proceeded unimpeded and developed these deadly capabilities, uses its weapons", he said.
"If Iran continues to develop with great application of resources and energy the capability to project power and deadly weapons of mass destruction beyond its immediate border, this will have enormous consequences throughout the world," he added.
"We urge all the governments of the world to consider the actions necessary to prevent an equal crisis or even a greater crisis from taking place in the future" with Iran, he told the envoys.
Israel, backed by the US, has for years waged a campaign to alert world opinion to Iran's suspected development of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and the long-range missiles capable of delivering them anywhere in the Middle East and as far as Europe.
Mr Netanyahu yesterday welcomed assurances by China that it had halted all technical co-operation with Iran which could help it develop such weapons. He said Israel was waiting to see if similar assurances by Russia were true.
Mr Netanyahu also reaffirmed that Israel reserved the right to retaliate if attacked by Iraqi missiles in the mounting crisis over UN arms inspections.
"We reserve the right of selfdefence, which is a natural right of any state, any nation, under potential or real attack," Mr Netanyahu said.
The US Defence Secretary, Mr William Cohen, said on Wednesday that the US "very strongly urges the Israelis not to get involved even if attacked" by Iraq.
The US has threatened a strike against Iraq if Baghdad persists in barring UN inspectors from sites suspected of hiding banned missiles or chemical and bacteriological weapons.