Israeli envoy: World must act to prevent Iran nuke breakthrough

Israel's ambassador to the U.S. on Friday called for the world to take "immediate and serious action" after a United Nations report revealed that Iran has acquired enough uranium for a nuclear bomb, Fox News reported on Friday.

"It's an extremely worrisome report. ... It emphasizes that with every day passing, Iran is getting closer to a nuclear military capacity," he said. "The world must take immediate and serious action in order to prevent this nightmare from happening," Meridor said.

Meridor did not describe what steps the international community should take, but said that "sanctions should be enhanced significantly" adding that "we are at a very, very serious and dangerous juncture to world peace."

Meridor told Fox News that the report shows the threat the Islamic Republic poses to the world and said that if they were to acquire a bomb it would release a "nuclear genie" that would "endanger every society in the world."

Earlier on Friday, Susan Rice, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the IAEA report left no doubt about Iran's continued pursuit of its nuclear program, and Washington would use "enhanced pressures" and possibly "direct engagement" to convince it to change course.

"The United States views Iran acquiring an illicit nuclear capacity as a grave threat to ourselves, to the region and indeed to Israel," Rice told National Public Radio in an interview airing on Friday and Monday.

"Our aim is to combine enhanced pressures, and indeed the potential for direct engagement to try to prevent Iran from taking its program to fruition," she said.

Also on Friday, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the international community must work together to urgently address Iran's uranium enrichment activities.

Gibbs said that point was underscored by a United Nations' report that said that Tehran had amassed enough uranium to make an atom bomb.

He said the report by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency represented another lost opportunity for Iran as it continues to renege on its international obligations.

Gibbs called Iran an urgent problem that has to be addressed. "We can't delay addressing it," he said.

The spokesman added that the international community cannot have confidence that Iran's program is peaceful if it doesn't comply with the UN.

Meanwhile, U.S. analysts have said an increase in Iran's reported stockpile of low-enriched uranium means the Islamic Republic could have enough of the material to make a nuclear bomb. An IAEA report on Thursday showed an increase in the stockpile since November to 1,010 kg.

Even then, the technical steps needed to "weaponize" enrichment would probably take two to five years.

Also Friday, diplomats said Iran recently understated by a third how much uranium it had enriched and United Nations nuclear inspectors are working with Tehran to ensure such a significant gap does not recur.

The IAEA believes the discrepancy was a technical mistake rather than subterfuge, but the matter is important given concerns, denied by Tehran, that it is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.

New figures in the report revealed that Iran had under-reported how much LEU it had amassed, raising new questions about the ability of the restricted inspectors' mission in Iran to keep track of Iranian nuclear advances.

The report said the 1,010 kg was based on an additional 171 kg from new production on top of 839 kg of previous output which inspectors had verified in November. But the last IAEA report at that time put the amount at 630 kg, based on Iran's estimate.

Diplomats familiar with the matter said the IAEA had concluded the discrepancy was due to faulty estimates that can arise from complexities in the phased enrichment process, not to any maneuver to divert LEU out of sight.

The report stressed that all nuclear material at Iran's underground Natanz enrichment plant, except for some waste and samples, was under regular IAEA containment and surveillance.

But the diplomats said the verified LEU figure was based on an inventory check that inspectors perform only once a year.

In theory, this means there is a risk that any smuggling of enriched uranium out of Natanz for use at a secret site might not be noticed for some time.

UN inspectors are discussing with Iran how to improve its operating records to prevent any repeat of such large differences in accounting in future, the diplomats said.

"This doesn't mean nuclear safeguards aren't working. But the IAEA will have to do the inventories more often as the amounts increase," said David Albright, a senior non-proliferation analyst in Washington.

"All this reinforces the point that if Iran does divert material, it doesn't mean the IAEA knows right away. This could be delayed a number of weeks, particularly if Iran stalls on allowing them into the plant," he told Reuters.

"The [broader issue] is that Iran has crippled the IAEA's ability to detect undeclared activities."

Iran says it wants a nuclear fuel industry solely to meet growing electricity demand and has promised to preserve IAEA monitoring of its two declared uranium production centres.

But it has severely curbed IAEA movements since being hit with UN sanctions - which it calls illegal - for refusing to suspend enrichment and failing to open up to an IAEA inquiry into allegations of past atom bomb research.

It now bars IAEA access to plants developing new centrifuges and other enrichment machinery, and to a heavy-water reactor under construction. This means inspectors cannot verify that no parallel, military-oriented work is under way in Iran.