Last update - 00:00 18/01/2007
Livni, in Japan, says Iran poses a threat to the entire Middle East
By Haaretz Service and News Agencies
Iran poses a threat to all countries in the Middle East, not just Israel, and the international community needs to take steps to prevent the spread of its extremist influence, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Thursday during a visit to Japan.
"Iran is a threat not just to Israel, but to the entire region," Livni told reporters during a trip to Tokyo, saying the Islamic nation was spreading extremist ideology. "Its goal is not just to wipe Israel off the map, but to remake the entire region."
Livni said the international community should clearly signal that hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's talk of wiping Israel out and questioning of the Holocaust are "unacceptable."
"It's clear that even if we can solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Iran won't change its ideology. It is based on extremist ideas," she said, that if not confronted could encourage extremists throughout the region.
She also called on the international community to take firmer measures to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapon technology.
Iran has aggressively pushed ahead with its nuclear program despite United Nations' demands that Tehran halt uranium enrichment. The UN imposed sanctions December as a result, but Livni criticized them as "too soft."
The sanctions were limited to a ban on selling materials and technology that could be used in Iran's nuclear and missile programs and the freezing of assets of 10 Iranian companies and individuals.
"We believe there is a need for stronger sanctions," she said. "It is clear that the world cannot afford a nuclear Iran."
The foreign minister met Thursday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at his official residence in Tokyo.
On Wednesday, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi Yona Metzger accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of "trying to imitate Hitler" and urged the international community to isolate him.
"I urge the heads of state of the whole world and the United Nations to do everything possible to stop the threat that Iran poses to my people and my country," Rabbi Metzger said at a inter-religious conference with Vatican officials in Rome.
"(Ahmadinejad) is trying to imitate Hitler, hurling grave warnings against the Jewish people, who find themselves under an existential threat from the leader of Iran, who is invoking the destruction of my people," Metzger said, adding that "Not taking a position against a threat is worse than the threat itself," he added.
In the past year, Ahmadinejad has launched repeated verbal attacks against Israel. He has sparked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
Last month, he told delegates at an international conference in Tehran questioning the Holocaust that Israel's days were numbered.