Agence France-Presse,
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met on Sunday her South Korean counterpart Song Min-soon to discuss ways to prevent alleged nuclear proliferation in the Middle East by Iran and North Korea.
Livni urged South Korea to sever all economic and trade ties with Iran, which Israel and the West accuse of seeking to develop an atomic bomb under the guise of a civilian programme, a claim denied by Tehran.
“The international community is focusing its efforts to sever ties of firms and banks with Iran in order to increase the pressure on it and we must not allow Iran to bypass this significant activity by offering it alternatives in Asia,” Livni's office quoted her as saying.
“When Europe takes steps against Iran, Iran turns to Asia,” the foreign minister said.
Many European companies and banks have yielded to US pressure and cut back their financial ties with Iran, which faces heavy international pressure to halt its uranium enrichment programme.
The two foreign ministers also discussed North Korea's nuclear programme, which Pyongyang agreed to suspend last February, and “the need to prevent proliferation of components of its nuclear programme to the Middle East.”
Israeli jets in September bombed a site in northern Syria which according to newspaper reports was a nuclear facility being built with North Korean know-how. Both Damascus and Pyongyang denied the reports.
Israel, which belongs to the UN nuclear watchdog but is not a signatory to its key Non-Proliferation Treaty, is widely considered to have the Middle East's sole — if undeclared — nuclear arsenal.
It considers Tehran its chief enemy after repeated statements by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.
