Turkey is against any military strike on Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said yesterday, warning that speculation risked destabilising the region.
“We do not think it is right even to talk of possible military intervention in the region.... We are against such intervention and believe it would create more instability,” Anatolia news agency quoted Davutoglu as saying in Ankara. “It is unacceptable that countries suspected of having nuclear weapons cause new tensions in our region,” Davutoglu said, referring to Israel.
His comments came amid speculation that Israel could launch a strike on Iran with President Shimon Peres warning last weekend that an attack was becoming “more and more likely”. Tehran responded by threatening to hit back against any attack or even the threat of military action. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), meanwhile, made its hardest-hitting assessment yet about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive. “It is necessary to eliminate nuclear weapons not only in this or that country, but in the whole region,” Davtoglu added.
The Turkish foreign minister called on both Iran and the UN atomic agency to be “clear and open” in their allegations and responses.
An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities will only strengthen Tehran’s resolve to develop atomic weapons, Hans Blix, a former head of the UN atomic watchdog, warned in a new interview.
“I don’t think you can convince anyone to give up an atomic programme through the threat of violence,” Blix said in an interview with the Austrian news weekly Profil to be published tomorrow. “Rather, it will cause them to move even faster on it, in order to defend themselves,” he added, according to a short transcript in German of the interview.
Speculation has been rife that Israel may launch a strike on Iran with President Shimon Peres warning last weekend that an attack was becoming “more and more likely.” “I think that would be really foolish,” Blix reacted in the Profil interview.
“First of all, nobody knows where all the atomic facilities are located. Secondly, I would be really surprised if Iran did not have prototypes and construction plans that it could fall back on after an attack.”
“Thirdly, if the decision to build a bomb has not yet been taken, a military strike would ensure more than ever that it is.”
Blix, a former UN weapons inspector, also defended a new report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which made its hardest-hitting assessment yet about Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons drive, AFP reports
