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Manama: US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Saturday defended Israel's nuclear programme but accused Iran of stirring up problems around the world indiscriminately. "Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or cost in the blood of innocents - Christians, Jews and Muslims alike," Gates told an international conference. "There can be little doubt that their destabilising foreign policies are a threat to the interests of the United States, to the interests of every country in the Middle East, and to the interests of all countries within the range of the ballistic missiles Iran is developing," Gates said in his keynote address to the participants at The Manama Dialogue.
Gates, who took office last December, said that he had been watching the Iranian government intently for 29 years and that most of its promises have been hollow. "Considering all this, the international community should demand that the Iranian government come clean about its past illegal nuclear weapons development. The international community should require that Iran suspend enrichment and openly affirm that it does not intend to develop nuclear weapons in the future," he said. Asked during the question and answer session that followed the speech whether the United States would talk with Iran, Gates said the behaviour of Tehran's leadership "has not given one confidence that a dialogue would be productive". Missile defence When challenged to comment on the perceived double standard policies adopted by the US towards Iran and Israel, Gates said that "Israel is not training terrorists to subvert its neighbours. It has not shipped weapons into a place like Iraq to kill thousands of innocent civilians covertly. It has not threatened to destroy any of its neighbours. It is not trying to destabilise the government of Lebanon". And when asked whether Israel's nuclear programme threatened Middle East stability, he answered: "No, I do not [think]." Gates also called for an "air and missile defence umbrella" over the Gulf region to deter missile attacks by Iran. Gates told Al Hurra television - a US-funded Arabic language satellite television network - that Iran could resume its nuclear weapons programme "at a whim or a moment's notice" despite a new intelligence finding that Tehran halted a secret programme in 2003. He said they should "cooperate multilaterally in establishing an air and missile defense umbrella over this region that would deter a country like Iran from threatening to use missiles." Protest: Nuclear spying decried Iran has sent a protest letter to the United States accusing it of spying on the Islamic state's nuclear activities, the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday, citing the country's foreign minister. The letter, submitted to the Swiss embassy in Tehran which handles US interests in the country, was in reaction to a US intelligence report published last Monday which said Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.
"The ministry submitted a letter to the Swiss embassy in Tehran ... demanding explanations over America's espionage on Iran's nuclear case," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said. - Reuters
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