Israel's defense minister Mr Binyamin Ben Eliezer warned today that Iran would have a nuclear bomb by the year 2005.
"By the year 2005, they will be able to produce for the world an Iranian nuclear bomb," Mr Ben Eliezer told reporters here ahead of meetings with his US counterpart, Mr Donald Rumsfeld.
The Israeli minister expressed hope that the United States and Russia could use their improved relations to deal with the looming Iranian threat.
Iran was also due to be discussed at the meeting between Prime Minister Mr Ariel Sharon and US President Mr George W Bush in Washington today.
Mr Sharon is expected to urge the US to sever ties with the Palestinian leader Mr Yasser Arafat.
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The meeting takes place amid increased tension in the Middle East as Israel vowed today to hit back after a Palestinian shooting rampage in a West Bank settlement which left three dead.
Israeli defence analysts warned of a "new wave of terror" after the gunman's attack on the Hamra settlement, which killed a woman and her 11-year-old daughter as well as a soldier.
The attack provoked swift Israeli air raids on the Palestinian governor's compound in Nablus, slightly injuring five people.
Meanwhile Palestinian gunmen released hardline Islamist prisoners from a jail in the northern self-rule town of Jenin, while some 25 other detainees managed to escape from Nablus jail, Palestinian witnesses said.
The shooting at the settlement in the Jordan Valley came at the end of a day of increased tensions in the region, after Israeli police arrested a would-be suicide bomber on a bus on the edge of Jerusalem and the army intercepted a stash of long-range, home-made Palestinian missiles in the West Bank.
AFP