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Israel praises sanctions on Iran, calls for more

JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu praised as a “positive step” a new round of U.N. sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme and called for additional measures against Tehran’s energy sector.

The Security Council approved a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on Wednesday after five months of negotiations by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia.
“We hope that this positive step will be followed by decisive actions by other countries, including sanctions targeting Iran’s energy sector,” Netanyahu said in a statement late on Wednesday.
“This resolution warns Iran that the world’s leading countries are opposed to its nuclear programme,” he said. “The biggest threat to peace is that the world’s most dangerous regimes arm themselves with the most dangerous weapon.”
Western powers and Israel suspect Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability, because of its concealment of nuclear activity from the watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency and restrictions on IAEA access.
Israel, whose jets bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor in 1981 and what it said was a nuclear facility in Syria in 2007, has hinted it could use force to deny Iran the means to build an atomic bomb.
Israel, which is presumed to have the Middle East’s only nuclear arsenal, views a nuclear-armed Iran as an “existential threat”.
 

• MENA