WASHINGTON: Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium must be “taken out” before the US-Israeli war against Iran can be considered over, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview on Sunday.
“It’s not over, because there’s still nuclear material – enriched uranium – that has to be taken out of Iran. There’s still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled,” Netanyahu said in an excerpt of an interview due to air later Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes” programme.
“You go in and you take it out,” the Israeli leader said when asked how the uranium could be removed.
Netanyahu said that US President Donald Trump had a similar position.
“I’m not going to talk about military means, but the president, what President Trump has said to me – ‘I want to go in there’.”
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However, Netanyahu’s statement was in contrast to Trump’s public position.
The 79-year-old Republican is under increasing domestic pressure to end the Iran war and he insists that Tehran’s nuclear programme has been contained.
In an interview aired Sunday but apparently recorded earlier, Trump said Iran was “militarily defeated” and he insisted that the uranium could be removed “whenever we want.”
“We’ll get that at some point, whenever we want. We’ll have it surveilled,” he told independent television journalist Sharyl Attkisson.
“We have that very well surveilled. If anybody got near the place we will know about it and we’ll blow them up.”
Asked by CBS how the uranium stockpiles could be taken out from Iran, Netanyahu said he would prefer an agreement.
“I think it can be done physically. That’s not the problem. If you have an agreement and you go in and you take it out, why not? That’s the best way.”
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Pressed on whether there are military options to seize the hidden uranium, Netanyahu said, “I’m not going to talk about our military possibilities, plans, or anything of the kind”.
“I’m not going to give a timetable to it, but I am going to say that’s a terrifically important mission.”
In addition to the unresolved uranium stockpile issue, Netanyahu said there were several other war aims that had yet to be accomplished.
“There’s still proxies that Iran supports, their ballistic missiles that they still want to produce. Now, we’ve degraded a lot of it, but all that is still there and there’s work to be done.”