WarSclerotic

Israel has urged the United States to pass a new round of sanctions against Tehran and warned that if it wanted to, Iran could have enough fissile material for a bomb within weeks.

An Israeli official issued comments on Iran’s nuclear program in response to reports from Washington, that the White House wanted Congress to hold off on passing a new round of sanctions against Iran, as a gesture in the midst of the ongoing six party talk o diplomatically disarm Iran’s nuclear program.

According to Iran’s Press TV, senior Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said his country continued to enrich uranium at the 20-percent purity level. His words contradicted those issued last week by a senior Iranian parliamentarian that Tehran had halted that activity.

Diplomats accredited to the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Friday they had no information to substantiate word from a senior Iranian parliamentarian that Tehran has halted its most sensitive atomic activity.

Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a fissile level of 20 percent is a major technical step taking it just short of the concentration needed for a nuclear weapon. Iran says it needs the material only to fuel a medical research reactor.

An envoy in Vienna, where the IAEA is based, said he believed Iran was continuing to refine uranium to the 20 percent threshold despite the Iranian lawmaker’s comment that his country had ceased to do this. The next quarterly IAEA report on Iran will be issued in November.

An Israeli official on Saturday night said that the entire debate over whether Iran had continued to enrich uranium at the 20% level was “meaningless.” It’s an attempt to divert attention from the main issue, the need for Iran to completely stop uranium enrichment at any level, the Israeli official said.

The international community, therefore, should ensure the full dismantlement of Iran’s military nuclear weapons program, and until it does, sanctions against Iran should be increased, the Israeli official said.

It is this pressure which brought Iran to the negotiating table, it has to be kept up with determination until Iran completely dismantles its military nuclear weapons program that poses a danger to world peace, the Israeli official said.

Even if Iran produced uranium at a 3.5% level, it has the ability through innovative centrifuges to jump to the 90% uranium enrichment level, which would allow it to produce a bomb, the official said. Once Iran begins enriching uranium at 90%, it could have a nuclear bomb within weeks, the official said.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu already spoke of this point when he addressed the UN General Assembly in New York at the end of September, the official said.

“A nation that can enrich uranium to 3.5% can have the ability to enrich it at 90%. A nation that has the ability to recycle fuel, is almost guaranteed the ability to produce nuclear weapons,” the official said.

There is no reason why Iran, which systematically violates UN Security Council resolutions should retain any enrichment capability or a heavy water reactor, the official said.

These two elements are not necessary for a civilian nuclear energy program, only for the development of nuclear weapons, the Israeli official said.

Netanyahu conveyed a similar message to US Secretary of State John Kerry when the two men met in Rome last week. Intelligence Minister Yuval Seinitz said the same thing to US Vice President Joseph Biden when the two men met in Washington on Thursday.

Both the US and Israel agree that Iran’s nuclear program must be halted and that existing sanctions should not be eased until this happens, the two governments differ on the issue of imposing new sanctions.

Until Iran met with the six parties — the US, Russia, China, France, Germany and the United Kingdom — in Geneva earlier this month, the US Congress had been poised to pass a new round of sanctions against Iran that would be particularly crippling. A new round of six party talks with Iran will be held next week in Geneva on November 7 and 8th.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters in Washington on Friday that it was important to give diplomacy time to work before taking further action and that additional sanctions could be imposed later.

“We have conveyed that any congressional action should be aligned with our negotiating strategy as we move forward. So while we understand that Congress may consider new sanctions, we think this is a time for a pause, as we asked for in the past, to see if negotiations can gain traction. .. We feel that it’s important that any new proposals take into account the progress we’re making diplomatically and leave open the flexibility. There’s always time for sanctions in the future as needed,” she said.

In Vienna at IAEA headquarters on Monday, Yukiya Amano, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will meet with Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi for about an hour.

“The meeting will provide an opportunity to exchange views on the way forward,” the IAEA said in a statement.

It gave no details. The fact the Amano-Araqchi meeting appeared to be scheduled at short notice may be seen as a further sign of the new Iranian government’s desire to try to end international deadlock over the country’s nuclear programme.

It will be followed by a new round of negotiations later the same day, also in Vienna, between senior officials from both sides over a stalled IAEA investigation into suspected atomic bomb research by Iran, which denies the charge.

Neither Amano nor Araqchi is due to take part in those previously scheduled talks, which will be the 12th such meeting since early 2012.

The IAEA-Iran talks have so far failed to yield a breakthrough deal that would allow the agency to resume its inquiry.

In Washington next week, Kerry and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will hold a briefing on Thursday on the status of nuclear talks with Iran for members of a U.S. Senate committee considering tough new sanctions on Tehran, Senate aides said on Friday.

The secret briefing for members of the banking panel with Kerry and Lew on the status of the talks with Iran will take place on Thursday at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT), according to a document obtained by Reuters.

The House of Representatives passed its version of a stiffer sanctions package in July by a 400-20 vote. The House bill seeks to slash Iran’s oil exports by another 1 million barrels a day a year.

The Senate bill could reduce the ability of the Obama administration to offer waivers to the sanctions. But the measure has not come to a vote in the banking committee, a prelude to its consideration by the full Senate. The two versions would then be reconciled before being sent to Obama for his signature.

It appeared on Friday that banking committee leaders, who had already put off consideration of the package from September, agreed to at least some further delay.

Debate on amendments to the measure, known as the committee markup, had been expected as soon as early next week with a vote on Thursday, but Senate aides said they now did not expect the markup next week.

“An Iran sanctions markup has yet to be scheduled,” a senior Senate aide said.

Sanctions imposed in 2011 by Washington and the European Union have combined to slash Iran’s oil exports by more than 1 million barrels a day, depriving Tehran of billions of dollars worth of sales a month and helping to drive up inflation and unemployment.

The White House hosted a meeting of aides to Senate committee leaders on Thursday seeking to persuade lawmakers to hold off on the new sanctions package.

Reuters contributed to this report.