JERUSALEM, Jan 17: Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned Iran on Tuesday that his country would not let anyone who threatened its existence obtain weapons of mass destruction as officials headed to Moscow for talks over Tehran’s nuclear programme.

In one of his first forays into foreign policy since taking over from the coma-stricken Ariel Sharon, Mr Olmert also said he believed a diplomatic solution was possible before Iran was able to obtain nuclear weapons.

“Israel cannot allow in any way or at any stage someone who has such hostile intentions against us to obtain weapons that could threaten our existence,” Mr Olmert said in talks with President Moshe Katsav.

Israel has come to view Iran as its number one enemy and its fears were heightened when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in October called for the Jewish state to be ‘wiped off the map’.

Mr Olmert said concerted international pressure could still bring about a diplomatic solution.

“I believe that there is a way to prevent non-conventional weapons coming into the hands of those who pose a danger to the entire world,” Mr Olmert said.

“The Iranian issue is at the top of the agenda for the Israeli government as well as the international community.

“It is being dealt within a continuous manner with contacts between the government and those in Europe and the United States.”

A source in the prime minister’s office said the trip by the Moscow-bound delegation, which includes national security adviser Giora Eiland and the head of Israel’s atomic energy commission Gideon Frank, would ‘enable an exchange of views and information on the state of play with Iran’s nuclear programme’.

A report in Israel’s main Yediot Aharonot newspaper said Mr Olmert had decided to push ahead with the visit following a phone call with Russia’s national security adviser Igor Ivanov.

Ephraim Kam, an analyst at Tel Aviv University’s Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, said the Israeli government understands that Russia’s stance is crucial in keeping Iran in check on its nuclear programme.

“Russia plays a key role in the nuclear programme, that’s why Israel is trying to convince Moscow to toughen its position and adopt the firmer stance that we have seen from America and the Europeans.

“It also seems that Moscow is not against the sanctions that could be laid down by the Security Council but the

real question is what kind of sanctions

— economic measures or merely symbolic?”

Israeli officials have played down the idea of a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, but the outgoing head of military intelligence, Aharon Zeevi, said last month that such a move was ‘not impossible’.

In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s French-built Osirak nuclear reactor.

Israel itself is believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, although it has never admitted to having a non-conventional arsenal. —AFP