In a rare appearance before the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee, Meir Dagan said Iran was close to the “point of no return” in developing nuclear arms.

The programme was “the biggest threat to Israel’s existence since its creation” in 1948, he was quoted as saying.

During a visit to Washington last week, Israeli Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz warned that Iran would reach a “point of no return” in its nuclear programme within a year unless there were concerted efforts to stop it.

“Concentrated efforts are needed to delay, to stop or to prevent the Iranian nuclear programme,” he said in a speech.

The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report last week accusing Iran of conducting two decades of covert nuclear activities, including plutonium manufacture, though it said there was no evidence as yet it was trying to build a nuclear bomb.

Since the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq, Israel has come to regard the Islamic fundamentalist administration in Tehran as its number one enemy.

Iran’s former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati, now a top adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted as saying last week that the mere existence of Israel is contrary to Tehran’s national interests.

Israel, like the United States, accuses Iran of using a civil atomic energy programme as a cover to develop nuclear weapons.—Reuters/AFP