US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday compared the showdown with Iran over its nuclear program to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Clinton told lawmakers that "we are engaged in very intensive diplomacy," saying it is similar to what president John F. Kennedy did when he forced the Soviet Union to withdraw missiles it had deployed in Cuba, near US shores.

"My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy," the chief US diplomat told the House Appropriations subcommittee.

"It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons," she said.

"That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran," Clinton said.

The United States is working with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to try to halt Iran's uranium enrichment program, but is finding resistance from China to a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions.

The Western powers fear that the enrichment program masks a drive for nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

earlier related report
US, Israel resume 'strategic dialogue' on Iran
Jerusalem (AFP) Feb 25, 2010 - The United States and Israel held a "strategic dialogue" on Thursday over Iran's nuclear programme for the first time since US President Barack Obama took office, officials said.

US Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg met with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon to pick up the regular consultations that were held during the preceding Bush administration.

"The dialogue provided an opportunity for in-depth discussion of a range of regional and international issues, thereby further strengthening the close strategic cooperation between the two countries," the foreign ministry said after the meeting.

Another round of talks would take place in Washington later in the year, it added.

Israeli officials had said the talks would focus primarily on Iran's nuclear programme, which Israel considers its greatest strategic threat.

Meanwhile, a US official described the consultations as a "regularly scheduled annual dialogue" covering a range of regional and security issues not tied to specific events.

The meeting came during a visit to the United States by Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak in which he was to meet with several top US officials.

Israel has called for tough international sanctions on Iran's energy sector to persuade Tehran to halt its nuclear enrichment programme, which Israel and the West suspect is aimed at creating an atomic weapon.

Iran has insisted the programme is purely for civilian purposes.

Israel, the region's sole if undeclared nuclear power, has viewed Iran as its greatest threat because of the nuclear issue and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated predictions of the Jewish state's demise.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped to see a UN Security Council resolution on new sanctions against the Islamic republic in the next two months.

Washington has warned that "time and patience is running out" after Iran announced last week that it is considering building two more uranium enrichment plants inside mountains to protect them from air strikes.

Iran, however, has at the same time told the UN nuclear watchdog it is still prepared to buy fuel for a nuclear reactor or swap its own stockpile of low-enriched uranium for the fuel, but on its own territory.

earlier related report
German export chief wants harder measures against Iran
Berlin (AFP) Feb 25, 2010 - The head of Germany's exporters' federation BGA called Thursday for harsher measures against Iran over its disputed nuclear policy, saying the time for appeasement had passed.

"From Chamberlain I've turned into Churchill," Anton Boerner told the Financial Times Deutschland newspaper, a reference to former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain who sought to appease Adolf Hitler and to Britain's subsequent war-time leader.

Pursuing the current "policy of appeasement" towards Iran will achieve nothing, the BGA chief said.

German business has long opposed sanctions against Tehran because of its strong trading links with Iran.

But Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Germany, along with other western nations, will toughen sanctions already in place to force Iran to give up its nuclear programme which they fear will soon result in an atomic bomb.

Tehran claims its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

Asked why he now favoured stronger measures, Boerner said Europeans have bent over backwards to try to convince Iran to cooperate.

But "when a state lies all the time to everyone, there comes a point of no return," he added.

Further sanctions, he conceded, would be "mainly symbolic" as even stronger measures now under consideration by Europe and the United States "will not stop goods reaching Iran."

Germany's two largest insurance companies, Allianz and Munich Re, recently announced they would stop doing business in Iran, while the giant industrial Siemens group said last month that it too was pulling out of Iran.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy and the world's second-largest exporter after China, recently cut credit export guarantees to Iran.

earlier related report
Clinton compares Iran showdown to Cuban missile crisis
Washington (AFP) Feb 25, 2010 - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday compared the showdown with Iran over its nuclear program to the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Clinton told lawmakers that "we are engaged in very intensive diplomacy," saying it is similar to what president John F. Kennedy did when he forced the Soviet Union to withdraw missiles it had deployed in Cuba, near US shores.

"My reading of what happened with President Kennedy is that it's exactly what he did. It was high-stakes diplomacy," the chief US diplomat told the House Appropriations subcommittee.

"It was pushing hard to get the world community to understand, going to the UN, making a presentation, getting international opinion against the placement of Russian weapons in Cuba, making a deal eventually with the Russians that led to the removal of the weapons," she said.

"That is the kind of high-stakes diplomacy that I'm engaged in, that other members of this administration are, because we take very seriously the potential threat from Iran," Clinton said.

The United States is working with Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany to try to halt Iran's uranium enrichment program, but is finding resistance from China to a fourth round of UN Security Council sanctions.

The Western powers fear that the enrichment program masks a drive for nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge, saying it is for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.