PM calls for tougher sanctions against Iran over nuclear program

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged the international community to increase its pressure on Iran Wednesday as a deadline for Tehran to halt its uranium enrichment activities ran out.

The UN Security Council had given Iran until Wednesday to freeze enrichment, a process that can be used to produce nuclear weapons. Officials at the UN nuclear watchdog agency were putting the finishing touches on a report expected to say that Iran has expanded its enrichment efforts instead of freezing them.

The council imposed limited sanctions on Iran in December.

Today is the last day that was designated by the international community and by UN Security Council Resolution 1737, Olmert told a gathering of foreign journalists. Therefore the international community will have to think of additional measures.

In Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged to push ahead with his country's nuclear program and said his people would not bow to Western intimidation.

Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But Israel, the U.S. and other Western countries say the program is intended to produce nuclear weapons for hostile purposes. Those fears have been compounded in Israel by Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons of its own, but has never officially confirmed that it does.

Its leaders have called for international action to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Olmert has said the international effort should be through diplomatic means, but Israel has not ruled out military action.

There has been speculation about the possibility that Israel might send its air force to bomb Iranian nuclear installations, as it did in 1981, when Israel destroyed the Iraqi nuclear reactor in an airstrike.

Most experts, however, believe that would not be extremely difficult against Iran, which has spread its nuclear facilities around the country, hiding many of the installations underground.

By The Associated Press