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Thursday, Dec. 1, 2005

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TEL AVIV, Israel -- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Thursday that he is confident all diplomatic efforts will be exhausted before any military action might be taken against the Iranian nuclear program.

When asked if any country is considering a strike against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons, Sharon said: "I am sure that before anyone goes to take such steps, all attempts will be made to pressure Iran to stop all this activity."

"We see that the pressures that are exerted can bear fruit," Sharon told journalists in Tel Aviv.

Israel is preparing for the possibility that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, but won't lead the fight against the Islamic state's nuclear ambitions, Sharon said.

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said earlier Thursday that the international community should use diplomacy to block Iran's nuclear program. He denied that Israel, which bombed an unfinished Iraqi nuclear reactor more than two decades ago, was considering attacking Iran.

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"The position of the state of Israel is that the diplomatic track is the correct way to deal with the Iranian nuclear policies," Mofaz told Army Radio.

Israel will make every effort to get the U.N. Security Council to pass resolutions to bring sanctions against Iran to pressure it to abandon the nuclear program, Mofaz said.

Israel and other countries claim Iran's nuclear power program is a camouflage for developing nuclear weapons capabilities.

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor with a single strike. But experts say such a strike would be difficult, if not impossible, against Iran, because intelligence is weak and the Iranians have multiple nuclear installations, some of them underground.

Recent media reports said Germany agreed to sell Israel two Dolphin submarines that could be armed with nuclear weapons and used against Iran in the event of an Iranian nuclear attack on Israel.

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