Updated 9:55 p.m. Moscow Time
UNITED NATIONS, September 29 (RIA Novosti) - Iran's nuclear military capabilities must be fully destroyed as they pose greater threat to the world than the spread of radical Islamist groups, including Islamic State, across the Middle East, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in his UN speech on Monday.
"Make no mistake, ISIS (Islamic State) must be defeated," Netanyahu said. "But to defeat ISIS and leave Iran as a threshold nuclear power is to win the battle and lose the war."
"There’s only one solution. Iran's nuclear military capabilities must be fully dismantled," he stressed.
The West accuses Tehran of working on nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear program, the claim that has been repeatedly denied by Iranian authorities. At a meeting held in November 2013 in Geneva, Iran and the so-called P5+1 group comprising representatives from Russia , the United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and Germany, agreed to reach a long-term nuclear agreement by July 2014. The deadline was later moved to November 2014.
Last year, following the meeting in Geneva, Netanyahu severely criticized the agreement between Iran and six world powers and called it a "historic mistake", as the pact curbs, but does not prohibit Iranian nuclear program.
Earlier on Monday, Kyodo news agency reported that the next round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 group will take place in less than two weeks.
