OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Iran's nuclear program has been beset by difficulties, leaving Tehran still about three years away from being able to build nuclear weapons, Israel's strategic affairs minister said Wednesday. “The Iranian nuclear program has a number of technological challenges and difficulties, so it has not succeeded,” Moshe Yaalon, who is also a former Israeli military chief, told public radio. He did not spell out the problems affecting the Iranian program. However, there has been widespread speculation that Israel was behind the Stuxnet worm that has attacked computers in Iran, and Tehran has blamed Israel and the US for the killing of two nuclear scientists in Nov. and Jan. “These difficulties have postponed the timetable,” said Yaalon. ‘‘So we can't talk about a point of no return. Iran does not have the ability to create nuclear weapons by itself at the moment.” He said Tehran now appeared to be about three years away from being able to produce the bomb. – Agence France
