The United Sates does not believe Israel will act on its own against Iran's nuclear program, Senator John Kerry told reporters in Jerusalem on Monday, adding that Washington and Israel were in agreement as to how to deal with the issue.
Iran itself, however, refused to rule out the possibility of an Israeli strike, with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki saying that while Israel was weakened by its recent battles with Islamist militant groups, it could still do "something crazy."
"The Zionist regime is not in a position to somehow wage another war in the region," Mottaki told reporters in Geneva.
He said the war in Lebanon in 2006 with Hezbollah and the intense fighting in the Gaza Strip in 2008-09, mainly with Hamas, had weakened Israel.
However, "it is possible they will do something crazy," Mottaki said, after addressing the United Nations Human Rights Council, which was in session.
Speaking of the possibility that Israel would act militarily against Tehran, Senator Kerry, speaking at a press conference following separate meetings with Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said that he believed Netanyahu understood what the U.S. was trying to achieve with diplomacy.
"I think that the prime minister is fully aware through his conversations with the administration as well as through his own comments to not be rash or not jump the gun and to give the other opportunities a chance," Kerry said.
Kerry, who is chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said after his meeting with Netanyahu that increased discussion between the two allies, expected to continues with a planned visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, was meant to ensure Israel and the U.S. were "all on the same page on what options might be on the table".
"I think we are on the same page," Kerry said, adding that he "found the prime minister very supportive of the initiative we are taking right now and hopeful that they can have an impact".
Kerry's comments came just as the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency Yukiya Amano said earlier Monday that he could not confirm that all of Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful, adding that Iran has not given the IAEA the level of cooperation necessary to make a determination on that issue.
Amano spoke Monday at the start of a 35-nation IAEA board meeting focusing on Iran's nuclear defiance.
Iran has refused to heed UN Security Council demands that it stop uranium enrichment. It also is stonewalling an International Atomic Energy Agency probe of its alleged attempts to build a nuclear weapons program.
Iran insists its activities are peaceful. Many nations fear it wants to build nuclear weapons.
Also on Monday, Tehran's envoy to the IAEA said that Iran has moved a stock of enriched uranium back underground after drawing what it needed to refine the material up to 20 percent purity.
Iran has said its move to feed low-enriched uranium (LEU) into centrifuges for higher-scale refinement is for peaceful purposes so that it can make fuel for nuclear medicine.
Western officials and UN inspectors doubt Iran's explanation since it lacks the technical capacity to convert higher-enriched uranium into fuel rods for its medical isotope reactor, whose Argentine-provided fuel stock is running out.
They fear Iran wants to advance along the road to producing high-enriched -- 90 percent purity -- uranium suitable for the fissile core of an atomic bomb, if it chose later to do so.
Iran said it started higher enrichment at the Natanz pilot nuclear fuel facility last month because it was frustrated at the collapse of an IAEA-backed plan for big powers to provide it with the necessary fuel rods.
Western diplomats also questioned why Iran had moved the bulk of its LEU -- 1.95 tons -- out of its underground main enrichment plant at Natanz, a much larger amount than would be needed to produce fuel for the reactor in the medium term.
"[This] was merely for producing material for the Iran research reactor. That is why that container is [now] back to its original location," Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters.
He dismissed media reports that the move might have been a provocation aimed at adversaries such as Israel, which views the Iranian nuclear energy program as an existential threat.
The reports speculated that Iranian hardliners wanted to provoke an Israeli air strike on Iran's nuclear stockpile to provide a pretext for Tehran to kick out IAEA inspectors and develop nuclear weapons as a national security priority.
"For your information, [we] just moved the capsule because technically they needed it and they have put it back. We used we material which we needed for the Tehran Research Reactor," Soltanieh said, speaking in English during a break in a meeting of the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors meeting.
Diplomats there discounted the chance of political reasons for Iran having moved much of its LEU stockpile above ground.
"A more likely reason was that Iran needed a large container to provide a steady feed with sufficient pressure for 20 percent enrichment," said one senior diplomat close to the IAEA.
"In any case, this container can be moved back and forth between the pilot and main Natanz facilities in a half hour or so. So it could be moved quickly anyway," he told Reuters.
Haaretz
