Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Israel has expressed alarm over the prospect of U.S. nuclear concessions to Iran.

Officials said the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was dismayed by indications that Washington would enable Iran to continue its nuclear program, including those elements that could be used for weapons.

The officials cited testimony to Congress by Secretary of State John Kerry that the United States could support an agreement to allow Iran to assemble an atomic bomb within months.

“The things Kerry said in the Congress are worrying, they are surprising and they are unacceptable,” Israeli Strategic Minister Yuval Steinitz said.

In an interview with Israel Radio, Steinitz expressed government concern over P5+1 nuclear negotiations with Teheran. The minister, deemed close to Netanyahu, said Israel feared that Iran would emerge stronger from any accord that would also remove sanctions.

“We are watching the negotiations with concern,” Steinitz said on April 14. “We are not opposed to a diplomatic solution but we are against a solution which is entirely a surrender to Iran and which leaves it a threshold nuclear state.”

In an appearance to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on April 8,
Kerry acknowledged that Iran required two months to complete the assembly of
its first nuclear weapon. But Kerry said Iran might race toward a nuclear
weapon without a warhead of delivery system.

“It’s just having one bomb’s worth, conceivably, of material, without
any necessary capacity to put this in, to deliver,” Kerry said.

For his part, Steinitz said Israel could not accept an Iran with
imminent breakout capability. Earlier, Iran insisted its right to enrich
uranium to a weapons-grade level of 90 percent.

“We will not be able to adopt and accept any agreement which leaves Iran
months or a year from a nuclear weapon,” Steinitz said.

  Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel shocked by ‘unacceptable’ U.S. concessions on Iran’s nuclear program, John Kerry, P5+1, Yuval Steinitz