JERUSALEM — Israel’s minister of strategic affairs said yesterday that technical difficulties have pushed back the Iranian timetable for producing a nuclear weapon.
Moshe Yaalon, a former military chief of staff whose portfolio includes monitoring Iran, said he believes Iran is at least three years away from developing a nuclear bomb. Iran denies it has such intentions.
Israeli military officials have said Iran has the expertise to build a bomb but needs time to gather the necessary materials.
Yaalon’s assessment matches the outer range of past Israeli estimates that Iran is anywhere from one to three years away from developing a weapon.
“These difficulties postpone the timetable, so we can’t talk about a point of no return. Iran does not currently have the ability to produce a nuclear weapon by itself,’’ he told Israel Radio. “It could happen in the next three years if the process succeeds.’’
Israel considers Iran a strategic threat because of Tehran’s nuclear program, missile capability, and frequent references by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the destruction of Israel.
Israel has repeatedly warned that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons, only to revise its assessments.
Yaalon acknowledged that evaluating Iran’s secretive nuclear program is an imprecise science, noting that under past assessments he delivered while in the military, Iran should already have achieved weapons capability.
Yaalon did not say how he reached his latest assessment.
In recent months, Iranian nuclear scientists have been abducted and killed, and a destructive computer worm has struck Iran’s uranium enrichment activity.
Iran insists its nuclear program is peaceful and it has accused Israel of trying to sabotage the work.
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