Israeli FM: Iran Sanctions Could Spark Domestic Uprising
International sanctions could trigger a popular uprising in Iran similar to last year's revolution in Egypt that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, Israel's foreign minister said in statements published Sunday.
"The opposition demonstrations that took place in Iran in June 2009 will come back in even greater force," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said in an interview published by Israel's Haaretz newspaper.
"In my view, there's going to be an Iranian-style Tahrir revolution," he said, referring to last year's mass protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square that forced Mubarak to quit.
"The young generation is sick of being held hostage and sacrificing their future," Lieberman said.
"The situation in Iran, and the feelings of the man on the street, is one of economic catastrophe," he said.
"Just this week there was another devaluation of the Iranian rial .... There's a shortage of basic goods, a rise in crime, and people are trying to flee the country, sending money abroad."
Haaretz said that the interview took place on Saturday in New York, where Lieberman attended the United Nations General Assembly, along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the assembly, Netanyahu delivered a warning about the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, with the help of a sketch of a comic-book bomb complete with fizzing fuse and a line drawn in red marker showing the state in the device's development which he said Iran must not be allowed to pass.
"You can laugh, but everyone is talking about... the red line," Lieberman told Haaretz.
The Iranian government says it is enriching uranium to 20 percent purity -- a short technical step from the 90 percent needed for a bomb -- for a medical research reactor. The West believes the effort hides a military goal.
Source: Agence France Presse
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