Obama: Israel has not yet decided on Iran attack

Feb 6, 2012, 0:46 GMT

Washington - Israel has not yet made a decision on its response to the world's growing concern about Iran's capability to build nuclear weapons, US President Barack Obama said Sunday.

'I don't think that Israel has made a decision on what they need to do,' Obama told NBC news in an interview.

Until Tehran takes the steps to convince the international community that it only has a 'peaceful' nuclear programme, Obama said that 'Israel rightly is going to be very concerned and we are as well.'

The past week saw a flurry of indications that Israel could attack Iran this spring in a bid to stop Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons programme.

On Friday, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened that 'the Zionist regime (Israel) is a cancerous tumour and should be removed and it will be removed.'

Obama noted that Iran is 'feeling the pinch' of an unprecedented escalation of sanctions in the past month. The European Union has enacted an oil embargo, and the US has placed heavy sanctions on anyone who does business with Iran's central bank, which handles most of the country's income from oil exports.

Obama said that Israel and the United States have 'closer military and intelligence consultations' than ever before, but he declined to discuss whether Israel has promised to alert the US before a possible attack.

This coming week, Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is to meet with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Washington, their first meeting in nearly 18 months. The two clashed in June 2009 over Israeli construction in West Bank settlements, and have not met since 2010.

'Our preferred solution is diplomatic, but we're not going to take any options off the table,' Obama said. 'I've been very clear that we're going to do everything we can to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons and prevent an arms race in a volatile region.' dpa fb pr Authors: Frank Brandmaier, Pat Reber

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