Israel silent on Iranian nuclear talks

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Long strident in its calls for tougher international action over Iran's nuclear program, Israel has fallen silent as world powers try to convert last week's talks with Tehran into a lasting deal.

Israeli officials have declined comment on Thursday's meeting in Geneva, which yielded agreements to open a newly disclosed Iranian uranium enrichment site to inspection and follow-up negotiations.

While experts in Israel and abroad voiced skepticism about the value of such moves, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-leaning government appeared to have adopted the "wait and see" attitude of the United States and its European allies.

"I assume official Israel is saying, de facto, that they withhold judgment until the picture becomes clearer, and that for now no new decisions need to be made," said a recently retired Israeli government adviser.

Though Iran denies seeking nuclear weapons, the lack of transparency around its program and the virulently anti-Israel rhetoric from Tehran has stirred global fear of secret bomb designs that could draw pre-emptive Israeli military strikes.

The hawkish Netanyahu has at times stoked such speculation. But centrist Defense Minister Ehud Barak last month suggested that Israel -- assumed to have the Middle East's only atomic arsenal -- could opt instead to fend off a nuclear-armed Iran.

Some analysts see Israeli forces as incapable of delivering long-term damage to Iran's distant and fortified nuclear sites, which could mean that Netanyahu has little choice but to hope for a diplomatic breakthrough or, failing that, for a U.S.-led military intervention along with upgraded defenses for Israel.

The Obama administration has said it wants to see progress in the new engagement with Iran by year's end, and spoken of "crippling" sanctions as a punitive option.

SANCTIONS IN 2010?

"The chance of the Iranians agreeing to a complete halt of the nuclear program looks relatively slim, in my view," former Israeli deputy prime minister Shaul Mofaz said on Sunday. "Theirs is a strategy of buying time."

"Therefore, in my view, moving to a next stage of harsher sanctions, in global partnership, and with an emphasis on Russia and China, is inevitable." Mofaz told Israel Radio. "My assessment is that 2010 will be the year of sanctions on Iran."

Under the previous government, Mofaz was Israel's strategic liaison with the United States and set a core demand that any deal with Iran rule out uranium enrichment on its soil.

That stance could be challenged by Iran's offer, at the Geneva talks, to send low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France for further processing and then re-import it to fuel a U.N.-monitored Tehran reactor to produce medical isotopes.

An Israeli intelligence official voiced concern that such "outsourcing" might be used by Iran as a pretext to continue domestic LEU production for a stockpile that could be converted into bomb-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) in the future.

But American and British officials said the export deal, which has yet to be finalized, would be a one-off. France, another of the six powers that met Iran last week, has led calls for a freeze on Iranian enrichment to be kept on the agenda.

(Editing by Dominic Evans)