Opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday asked one of the biggest U.S. pension funds to pull money out of companies doing business with Iran because of fears over possible development of nuclear weapons.

"This allows you to use economic pressure that might obviate the need to use different measures," former prime minister Netanyahu told reporters after the hour-long meeting with Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill. "It actually might work given Iran's own vulnerabilities."

Cahill and Michael Travaglini, executive director of the state's $46 billion pension fund, said they would consider the request.

	Advertisement

Representatives of Rhode Island and New Hampshire, which have smaller pension funds, also attended the meeting.

Iran has been accused by the West of secretly seeking nuclear weapons, but Tehran has said its nuclear program is designed only to generate electricity. On Monday, Iran banned 38 of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors from working in the country.

Netanyahu urged Massachusetts officials to act quickly to try to help stop Iran's nuclear program. "The clock is ticking," he said.

Netanyahu is due to meet with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose state's Public Employees' Retirement System, Calpers, manages the world's biggest pension fund with $225 billion.

On Sunday, Netanyahu said he hoped to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to international trial for incitement to genocide. Ahmadinejad provoked international outcry by referring to the killing of six million Jews in World War Two as a "myth" and calling for Israel to be "wiped off the map."

Cahill said divesting from Iran was "something we should look at" but said he does not want to bring politics into investing and would make sure that fund's strong performance record would not be jeopardized.

Israel is widely believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal and has said it would not allow neighboring Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, currently visiting Israel, helped set up the meeting between Cahill and Netanyahu. Romney has also called for sanctions against Iran.

In the past, Massachusetts divested from South Africa and Northern Ireland over social and political issues.

The state's legislature, which needs to initiate such action, is currently debating taking money out of companies doing business with Sudan to protest genocide in its Darfur region. Travaglini and Cahill said one option might be to add Iran to the proposal about Sudan.

The state's pension fund has roughly $800 million invested with companies doing business with Sudan but has no estimate of how much is invested with companies doing business with Iran, Travaglini said.

The U.S. state Missouri said last year that it would stop investing in companies doing business with Iran.