By Monami Thakur: Subscribe to Monami's RSS feed
November 14, 2011 1:31 AM EST
Following the release of a recent U.N. report indicating suspicious activities in Iran's nuclear program, Israeli leaders have indicated a more urgent need to impose stricter sanctions against the program.
According to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the true picture of Iran's nuclear program was not reflected completely, even in the U.N. report. He warned the global community that Iran was "closer" to arming itself with nuclear weapons than many people believe.
The report, released by U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) last week, indicated that Iran was working on at least "14 progressive design iterations" for developing an atomic missile warhead.
The report also marked the presence of approximately five metric tons of low-enriched uranium and at least 70 kg of 20 percent enriched uranium; both quantities of each are enough, experts said, to produce three or four cores for nuclear devices with further enrichment. However, the report failed to speculate the time it would take for Iran to develop these weapons.
Although Netanyahu did not specify what additional information he possessed regarding Iran's nuclear status, he did say there were several points not mentioned in the report.
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Iran, meanwhile, has dismissed all accusations that the country is working on developing its nuclear weapons program. The government stressed that all atomic energy projects were for the development of peaceful projects, like electricity and the IAEA report was "unbalanced and politically motivated".
In an analysis of the IAEA report, Reuters suggested that intensified media speculation could force either the U.S. or Israel to take military action against Iran. It has been reported that both Washington D.C. and Tel-Aviv were keeping "all options open", in order to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, defiantly stated that all attempts at military aggression against his country would be met with a "strong slap and iron fist".
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