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Blair sees Iran 'strategic threat'

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Blair sees Iran 'strategic threat'
UNITED NATIONS, (Agencies): Iran, whose president said last week that
Israel's days were numbered, called on the UN Security Council on
Tuesday to compel the Jewish state to give up its nuclear weapons.

Iranian UN Ambassador Javad Zarif wrote to the 15-nation UN body after
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in a German TV interview, implied
for the first time that his country had nuclear weapons.

Israel had never before acknowledged having atomic bombs and, unlike
Iran, is not a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, known as
the NPT.

Israel is assumed to have about 200 nuclear weapons, Hans Blix, former
head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Vienna-based UN
nuclear watchdog, said last June.

Olmert's statement triggered widespread criticism from Arab states that
the West was working under a double standard in pressing Iran to
suspend
its nuclear activities while ignoring Israeli arms.

The Iranian letter marked the first formal call for action against
Israel by the UN Security Council, which is currently negotiating a
resolution that would impose sanctions on Tehran over its nuclear
ambitions.

Tehran says its nuclear program seeks only to produce electricity but
Western powers fear it is using a domestic nuclear program as a cover
for making bombs.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair urged world leaders on
Wednesday to be bolder in supporting leading moderates against "forces
of extremism" in Iran and elsewhere and in advancing
Israeli-Palestinian
peacemaking.
Blair, on the final day of what may be his last Middle East tour, said
Iran was openly supporting terrorism in Iraq, undermining the Lebanese
government and blocking Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Iran has never recognised Israel and last year President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be "wiped off the map".
Tehran, under Western pressure over its nuclear programme, also backs
the Lebanese guerrilla group and opposition party Hezbollah, which is
leading a drive for early elections after failing to obtain veto power
in government.
Blair, who will leave office next year and whose popularity has been
eroded by the Iraq war, rejected suggestions American or British action
in the Middle East was fuelling terrorism.

"We should stop buying into this wretched culture of blaming
ourselves,"
he told business leaders in Dubai. "If our policy has a fault, it is
that we are too shy of acting boldly to bring about change, to give
succour to those trying to live for the better."
Blair called on moderate leaders across the Middle East to join a
"monumental struggle" between democracy and extremism.

"We must recognise the strategic challenge the government of Iran
poses;
not its people, possibly not all of its ruling elements, but those
presently in charge of its policy," he said.

Iran wants "to pin us back in Lebanon, in Iraq and in Palestine", he
added.
Some Iraqi politicians, mainly Sunni Muslims, accuse Tehran of fuelling
sectarian violence by supporting Shi'ite militias.

"Our response should be to expose what they are doing, build the
alliances to prevent it and pin them back across the whole of the
region," Blair said.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for key parties to seek a
negotiated settlement with Iran over its nuclear program and warned
that
military intervention would be "unwise and disastrous."

Annan issued the warning Tuesday as the Security Council debated a
resolution that would impose sanctions on Tehran for refusing to
suspend
uranium enrichment and as the United States considered sending a second
aircraft carrier to the Gulf as a show of force against Iran.
After two rounds of closed-doors talks Tuesday, the six key nations
trying to negotiate with Iran - Britain, France, Germany, the US,
Russia
and China - remain divided on the scope of sanctions. They scheduled
another meeting on Wednesday.
"Our goal is to get this resolution done this week," said acting US
ambassador Alejandro Wolff. But Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin
said he was more concerned about the content than the timing.
The French government Wednesday warned against any attempt to "alter
the
scope" of proposed UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme, after
Moscow sans altering the scope of the resolution," foreign ministry
spokesman Denis Simmoneau told reporters.
"That is why discussions are continuing, notably on what shape to give
to restrictive measures against entities and persons responsible for
sensitive activities targeted," he said.
Russia said on Wednesday attempts by its Western partners to ditch
agreed principles in handling Iran's nuclear ambitions were blocking
adoption of a UN Security Council resolution on sanctions against
Tehran.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news conference Russia was also
alarmed by what it saw as Western attempts to hamper its economic
cooperation with the Islamic republic and bring it under international
control.
Lavrov said the five permanent Security Council members and Germany had
agreed any action against Iran should rule out the use of force, help
find a negotiated solution to the problem and back efforts by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"Unfortunately we now have to overcome formulas in the initial draft,
which depart from these basic principles," he said referring to the
document proposed by Britain and France and supported by Germany.
Meanwhile, the US Defense Department declined to confirm Tuesday a
report it will increase its naval force in the Gulf region next year.
CBS television reported Monday, citing anonymous sources, that the
Pentagon is planning a major deployment of naval forces to the Gulf in
2007 in response to what the US considers acts of provocation by Iran.
The Pentagon would not confirm the report, however.
"We have very robust military and it includes a very capable navy that
is deployed throughout the world," Defense Department spokesman Bryan
Whitman said Tuesday.