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IRAN may be only six months from having the necessary means to make an atomic bomb, Israeli Foreign Minister Sylvan Shalom said today, urging quick international action on Tehran's nuclear program.
"The next meeting of the International Atomic Agency (IAEA) is a crucial meeting, because there is a limit of time until (Iran) will have a full knowledge of how to develop a nuclear bomb," Mr Shalom said after meeting with his French counterpart Philippe Douste-Blazy.

"It may only be six months from today," he said.

Mr Shalom spoke a day after the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be "wiped from the map", drawing international condemnation.

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors in September found Iran in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, paving the way for the matter to be referred to the UN Security Council if Iran does not halt nuclear fuel work and cooperate fully with an IAEA investigation.

The matter is to be taken up at the next IAEA board meeting in Vienna on November 24.

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(CNN) -- Thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel protests across the country Friday and repeated calls by their ultraconservative president demanding the Jewish state's destruction.

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Tehran, Oct. 28 – Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has fired his country’s ambassadors to Britain, France, and Germany, and ordered 18 envoys to be recalled to Tehran, a government official in the Iranian capital told Iran Focus.

“Ahmadinejad has been angered by what he sees as the envoys’ meek reaction to the global condemnation of his Wednesday speech against Israel and the West”, the official, who requested anonymity, said. “He made the speech with the full blessing of the Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] and has his green light to stifle any dissenting voice within the government”.

The official said that while there was broad consensus within the clergy-dominated regime on the hard-line President’s vow to “wipe Israel off the map”, some Iranian diplomats voiced concern that the international backlash could be too costly for the Islamic Republic.

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TONY BLAIR gave warning last night that the West might have to take military action against Iran after worldwide condemnation of its President’s call for Israel to be “wiped off the map”.

Ending a one-day European Union summit, the Prime Minister called the explosive declaration by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday a disgrace. Promising discussions with Washington and other allies over how to react, Mr Blair said that he had often been urged not to take action against Iran.

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The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, refused today to retract his call for Israel to be wiped off the map, while the Iranian embassy in Moscow attempted to calm the growing diplomatic crisis.

Mr Ahmadinejad appeared at an anti-Israeli rally attended by thousands of Iranians in Tehran and rejected the international condemnation of his comments as "invalid".

"My words were the Iranian nation's words. Westerners are free to comment, but their reactions are invalid," he said.

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We have decided to open a broad diplomatic offensive," the Israeli foreign minister, Silvan Shalom, said.

The country's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, called yesterday for Iran to be expelled from the UN.

"A country that calls for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN," he said.

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Mr Ahmedinejad's comments, made on Wednesday, have been widely condemned by world leaders including Tony Blair, who called them "completely and totally unacceptable".

Speaking after the one-day EU summit at Hampton Court, in Surrey, Mr Blair warned that the world would demand direct action against Tehran if the threats were repeated.

"When we hear such statements made about Israel, it makes us feel very angry. It's just completely wrong," Mr Blair said.

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