Haaretz
Tevet 17, 5767
The Foreign
Ministry in Jerusalem denied Sunday a report in the British media that
Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment
facilities with conventional and tactical nuclear weapons.
Citing
what it said were several Israel Defense Forces sources, the British
newspaper The Sunday Times said two Israel Air Force squadrons had been
training to blow up an enrichment plant in Natanz using low-yield nuclear
"bunker busters."
Two other sites, a heavy water plant at Arak and
a uranium conversion plant at Isfahan, would be targeted with conventional
bombs, the Sunday Times said.
But Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark
Regev said that Israel wanted the issue of Iran's nuclear program resolved
through diplomacy.
"The focus of the Israeli activity today is to
give full support to diplomatic actions and the expeditious and full
implementation of Security Council resolution 1737. If diplomacy succeeds,
the problem can be solved peaceably."
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's
office declined earlier to respond to the report.
"We don't
comment on stories like this in the Sunday Times," said Olmert's
spokeswoman, Miri Eisin.
Minister of Strategic Threats Avigdor
Lieberman also declined to comment.
In Tehran, Iran's Foreign
Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference that the
newspaper report "will make clear to the world public opinion that the
Zionist regime is the main menace to global peace and the
region."
He said "any measure against Iran will not be left without
a response and the invader will regret its act immediately."
The
United Nations Security Council voted unanimously last month to slap
sanctions on Iran to try to stop uranium enrichment that Western powers
fear could lead to making bombs. Tehran insists its plans are peaceful and
says it will continue enrichment.
Israel has refused to rule out
pre-emptive military action against Iran along the lines of its 1981 air
strike against an atomic reactor in Iraq, though many analysts believe
Iran's nuclear facilities are too much for Israel to take on
alone.
The newspaper said the Israeli plan envisaged conventional
laser-guided bombs opening "tunnels" into the targets. Nuclear warheads
would then be used fired into the plant at Natanz, exploding deep
underground to reduce radioactive fallout.
IAF pilots have flown to
Gibraltar in recent weeks to train for the 2,000 mile round-trip to the
Iranian targets, the Sunday Times said, and three possible routes to Iran
have been mapped out including one over Turkey.
However, it also
quoted sources as saying a nuclear strike would only be used if a
conventional attack was ruled out and if the United States declined to
intervene. Disclosure of the plans could be intended to put pressure on
Tehran to halt enrichment, the paper added.
Washington has said
military force remains an option while insisting that its priority is to
reach a diplomatic solution.
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
has called for Israel to be "wiped off the map." Israel, widely believed
to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, has said it will not allow
Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.
Israel has long maintained a
policy of nuclear ambiguity. Recent perceived slips by Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert have reinforced suspicions that Israel does have nuclear arms, but
Jerusalem has stuck to its line that it will not be the first to introduce
atomic weapons to the region.
The Sunday Times newspaper was the
first to report on Israel's
nuclear capabilities in 1986, based on leaked information by Mordechai
Vanunu, a former employee at the Dimona research plant.
Following
the expose, Vanunu was snatched by Israeli agents in Italy and returned to
Israel, where served an 18-year prison sentence. He was released in April
2004.