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One of the first high-quality images reported to show the Tabaqah Dam in northern Syria. (AP/ImageSat)
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Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Friday (AP)
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| By Associated Press April 30, 2006 |
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| This image dated Friday April 28, 2006, from the Israeli spy satellite Eros B, and made available by the Israeli company ImageSat International NV, on Sunday April 30, 2006, one of the first high-quality images reported to show the Kassala airport in southern Sudan. (AP/ImageSat) |
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The first high-quality images from an Israeli spy satellite designed to track Iran's nuclear program arrived at a ground station over the weekend, an Israeli official said Sunday.
The Eros B, launched last week from Russia, is capable of capturing images on the ground as small as 70 centimeters (27.6 inches). The satellite, which can remain in orbit for six years, can photograph the same spot on the Earth once every four days.
Satellite pictures published in Israeli newspapers Sunday showed vivid images of a Syrian dam, helicopters in Sudan and a military port in an unidentified country.
But the satellite's main purpose is to track Iran's nuclear program at a time when Tehran is refusing to comply with U.N. demands to halt uranium enrichment and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is calling for Israel's destruction.
Doron Suslik, an official at state-run Israel Aircraft Industries, a partner in the satellite project, declined to say whether images from Iran had also arrived.
"All the satellite's systems are working as necessary and the pictures that were received Friday afternoon ... were of an excellent quality," Suslik told The Associated Press.
Israeli officials have labeled Iran the greatest strategic threat to Israel at this time, and have called for international sanctions on Tehran to pressure it to halt its nuclear program.
Israel, the United States and other Western countries believe Iran's nuclear program is meant to develop weapons, but Tehran insists it is meant for civilian purposes.
Iran failed to meet a U.N.-imposed Friday deadline for halting uranium enrichment, a step needed to manufacture both nuclear weapons and energy, raising the possibility of international sanctions on the Islamic republic.
Olmert compares Ahmadinejad with Hitler, expresses confidence in West
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed confidence that the West will prevent Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction and compared Iran's president with Adolf Hitler for calling for Israel's destruction.
The remarks were published in Germany's Bild newspaper on Saturday, a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Iran had failed to observe a deadline for halting uranium enrichment activity.
"The West - above all under the leadership of the United States - will ensure that Iran under no circumstances comes to possess unconventional weapons," Olmert was quoted as saying in an interview.
"The president of the United States is a very brave man who understands that very well," Olmert said.
Olmert wouldn't say whether he thought a military conflict with Iran could become inevitable.
However, he said Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated calls for the destruction of Israel underlined the need to limit Iran's military strength.
"Ahmadinejad talks today like Hitler before he seized power" in Germany in the 1930s, Olmert said.
"We are dealing with a psychopath of the worst kind. ... God forbid that this man ever gets his hands on nuclear weapons," Olmert was quoted as saying.
Iran's nuke program is a global security crisis, trans-Atlantic security forum told
The dispute over Iran's nuclear program is a major test for the NATO alliance and its ambition to play a greater role in global security, European and U.S. officials told a trans-Atlantic security conference Saturday.
Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. envoy to the United Nations and the Balkans, said Iran lay "at the center (of a) genuine global crisis."
Russia and China may resist U.N. sanctions against Tehran but "a nuclear Iran is just as much, if not more, dangerous to them" as it is to Israel, Western Europe and North America, he told the Brussels Forum - a gathering where 275 trans-Atlantic politicians, business leaders and other experts debated global security.
Speaking at the same panel discussion, Javier Solana, the EU security affairs chief, said Iran was a destabilizing factor, but stressed the United States and EU governments were not contemplating military action.
"We are not thinking of that," Solana said, adding diplomatic efforts to get Tehran to comply with its nonproliferation commitments had not been exhausted.
U.S. President George W. Bush has said in the past, however, that the use of military force remains an option.
On Friday, the International Atomic Energy agency confirmed Iran has produced enriched uranium and defied a U.N. Security Council order to halt all activities related to uranium enrichment.
The U.S. and its European allies accuse Tehran of pursuing nuclear arms, viewing that as an acute threat to security in the Mideast and beyond.
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