TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign minister said yesterday he did not believe Israel was in a position to attack Tehran over its nuclear program.
“They know full well what the consequences of such an act would be,” Foreign Minister Manoucher Mottaki told reporters.
He was speaking a day after the head of the elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying Iran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf oil route if Iran was attacked and warned regional states of reprisals if they took part.
Mottaki said Israel was dealing with the consequences of its 2006 war with Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and was suffering a “crisis of deepening illegitimacy” in the Middle East region.
“That’s why we do not see the Zionist regime in a situation in which they would want to engage in such an adventurism,” he said when asked about the possibility of an Israeli attack.
Iran’s Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said reports of a possible strike were part of the “psychological warfare” waged by the West against Iran, aimed at diverting attention from “domestic failures” in the US and Israel.
Meanwhile, the former head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency said in an interview published yesterday Israel has one year to destroy Iran’s nuclear program or it faces the risk of coming under nuclear attack. Speaking to the Sunday Telegraph, Shabtai Shavit said the “worst-case scenario” was that Tehran would have a nuclear weapon within “somewhere around a year.”
