The UN Security Council should adopt more and tougher sanctions against Iran to try to halt Iran’s nuclear program, Israel’s foreign minister said in a radio interview broadcast Thursday.
The foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, also said private groups and businesses should stop dealing with Iran, despite possible economic losses.
The US is to press for tougher UN sanctions when diplomats hold a strategy session next week with the five other nations that have sometimes reluctantly used the world body’s punitive powers against Iran. Two rounds of milder sanctions have not slowed or stopped Iran’s nuclear program.
Livni told Israel Radio that the world must act quickly. "There must be no delays,” she said. “The world must take all the necessary action ... While we are talking, Iran is trying to obtain nuclear weapons." Iran insists it wants to use nuclear power only for peaceful purposes.
Livni said some countries don’t seem to understand the danger posed by a nuclear Iran.
"What we want to see is more Security Council sanctions, their widening and deepening, and making them more effective,” she said.