Israel calls for tough UN action on 'demented' Iran

AFP | October 15 2006

Israel's ambassador to the United Nations Sunday urged the Security Council to take tough measures against "demented" Iran for its nuclear program in the wake of North Korea's declared atomic test.

"The international community should learn the lessons of what occurred in North Korea," Danny Gillerman told army radio. "North Korea was only the preview. Iran will be the feature film, which, if no one takes serious action, will be projected throughout the whole world."

Gillerman called for "much harder sanctions to be imposed on a demented Iranian regime that seeks to destroy a UN member state (Israel), and totally denies the Holocaust, while preparing to perpetrate a second Holocaust."

But, "I do not anticipate more significant and firmer sanctions against Iran than those being considered for North Korea."

Opening the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said the situation in Iran and North Korea would dominate his visit this week to Russia, which is helping Tehran build its first atomic power plant at Bushehr.

"The Iranian threat and the developments in the nuclear issue in North Korea will without any doubt be at the center of our talks," Olmert said.

On Tuesday Israel said it feared North Korea could transfer nuclear technology to Iran, after Pyongyang announced it had carried out its first nuclear test.

Israeli leaders called for the North Korean test to serve as a wake up call to the international community on the risks of nuclear proliferation and prompt a zero-tolerance policy with Tehran.

The Islamic republic says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes but the West fears it is a cover for obtaining atomic weapons.

The six countries involved in talks over the Iranian nuclear file, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, on Wednesday sent their UN representatives proposed sanction regimes for Iran following Tehran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, warned Tuesday however that the resolution on Iran would likely take more time to draft than the one now being considered for North Korea.

Israel considers Iran its arch-enemy for President Mahmud Ahmadinejad's repeated threats to wipe the Jewish state "off the map" and for his comments questioning the Holocaust.

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