Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Thursday said he is committed to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, saying in a radio interview that Israel "will never give up its right" to defend itself.

However, he did not say whether Israel planned to take preventative military action and expressed hope international diplomacy would succeed.

Olmert said that Iran is his top priority, even at a time that Israel is trying to end a deadlock with the Palestinians and recovering from the recent war in Lebanon.

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"We are making extraordinary efforts to deal with the Iranian threat. This is a threat that can't be ignored," he told Israel Radio.

Olmert said Israel must work with its allies to prevent Iran from developing nuclear arms, welcoming involvement by Germany and England. He said the U.S. - and not Israel - should lead these efforts.

"I have direct contact with the U.S. president on this issue," he said. "I guarantee you that the U.S. is committed to this issue."

Israel is prepared to defend itself, Olmert said, but declined to say whether this includes a military option. "We never gave up and we will never give up our right to defend ourselves in every situation," he said

The prime minister also said Thursday he rejected a Syrian overture to restart peace negotiations, accusing the leadership in Damascus of harboring Palestinian terrorists.

Olmert has repeatedly rejected Syrian President Bashar Assad's recent statements that he desires peace with Israel, saying that so long as he allows Palestinian militant groups, including the Islamic Hamas group and Islamic Jihad, to take refuge in Damascus negotiations are impossible.

"These are reasons that even Syria's statements that it is interested in negotiations cannot be taken seriously," Olmert told Israel Radio. "It [Syria] was and remains the main supporter of the Palestinian terror groups who daily try to carry out terrorism against the state of Israel. In my opinion, this is not a foundation on which it is possible to hold peace negotiations."

In an interview Assad gave to the German weekly Der Spiegel last week, he said, "We want to make peace - peace with Israel."

Olmert also said Thursday that he does not foresee another violent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah in the near future.

The prime minister credited the Israel Defense Forces, which waged a month-long war against Hezbollah in the summer, with changing the reality in Lebanon, making it unlikely that the guerrilla group will engage in anything beyond small border skirmishes with Israel.

"I do not rule out that the sources that activated Hezbollah from the beginning, the Iranians and to some degree the Syrians, will make every effort to activate them in the future, and it could be that as a result we can expect tests," Olmert said.

"But, in my opinion, the chance that Hezbollah will be dragged into a broad military conflict of the type that we had is very small. The reality has changed and Hezbollah knows this well," Olmert added.

The war that erupted July 12 after Hezbollah carried out a cross-border raid, killing three soldiers and capturing two others, ended without a clear victor.

But a UN-brokered cease-fire demands the guerrilla group be disarmed and has brought hundreds of international forces into the southern part of Lebanon that borders Israel.

Olmert brushed off recent demonstrations, in which dozens of Lebanese residents - waving yellow Hezbollah flags - threw stones at soldiers patrolling the border.

So long as the protesters are unarmed, Olmert said, they are meaningless.

"The flags that you see are flags of Lebanese residents who identify with Hezbollah, and we never thought that we would be able to kill or remove all the people in south Lebanon who live this way," Olmert said. "None of them is walking around with arms, and all those who tried to carry weapons were killed by our forces in Lebanon in the past two months."