U.S. urges Iran to become 'productive' member of global community

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday urged Iran to become a "productive member" of the international community, saying that the United States was "reaching out a hand, but the fist has to unclenched."

"It is clear that ... Iran has an opportunity to step up and become a productive member of the international community," Clinton said at a news briefing with Britain's Foreign Secretary David Miliband, where she announced that world powers would meet to discuss strategy over Iran on Wednesday.

"We are reaching out a hand, but the fist has to unclench," she added.

Clinton said senior U.S. diplomat Bill Burns would join officials from world powers in Germany on Wednesday to discuss an international strategy for curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Tuesday that diplomatic efforts to persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program must be accompanied by a clear deadline, after which harsh sanctions could be imposed.

Barak told an international conference in Herzlia, north of Tel Aviv, that all options regarding Iran were on the table. "Beyond that I will say nothing," he added.

Israel regards Iran as its biggest existential threat, given Tehran's nuclear program and repeated statements by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian leaders that the state should be erased off the map.

Israeli officials also see Iran as being the prime sponsor of Islamic fundamentalist organizations dedicated to destroying Israel, such as the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and Palestinian groups such as the Islamic Jihad and Hamas.

Barak reiterated his stance that Israel would never sign any agreement with Hamas, which advocates replacing Israel with an Islamic state in all of historic Palestine.

"We will destroy and smash Hamas," he said, and added that the group had been deal a severe blow by the recent Israeli offensive against it and other militias in the Gaza Strip.

He warned that if Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel, "we must respond and we are responding."

Barak, running at the head of the Labor Party in next week's parliamentary elections, said a two-state solution - an Israeli and Palestinian state living side by side - was the only solution to the Israel-Palestinian imbroglio.