TEL AVIV, April 8. /TASS/. Iran should either agree to dismantle its nuclear program under external control, like Libya did, or face a military operation, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said following a trip to Washington.
Israel and the US share the view that Tehran shouldn’t possess nuclear weapons, he said, according to a statement from his office.
"This can be resolved through a deal, but only if it is a deal that follows the example of Libya, which means people go in, blow up nuclear site, dismantle all the equipment - under US supervision and with US participation. In that case, it is good. The second option is that there will be no deal. Then Iran will simply stall for time, which means only a military option will remain. Everyone understands this," Netanyahu said.
According to the prime minister, he discussed the issue during talks with US President Donald Trump when they met in the White House on April 7.
"We discussed it in detail," he said.
Libya sought to possess nuclear weapons since the 1970s. In the early 1980s, the Soviet Union helped the country build a nuclear research center with a 10-MW reactor. In 2003, following lengthy negotiations with the UK and the US, then Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi announced his country's refusal to develop nuclear weapons, a step that brought relations with London and Washington back to normal.