DHAKA: Former CIA and NSA director Michael Hayden said that Iran is ‘far too close’ to obtaining an atomic weapon and the international community must now push back the threshold of a possible weaponised nuclear Iran.

In an interview with ‘Fox News Sunday’, the retired US general said the recently-signed interim deal on Iran’s nuclear issue diverges from prior agreements with the United Nations that called for dismantling the Islamic Republic’s entire nuclear programme and shipping materials out of the country.

‘We have accepted Iranian uranium enrichment,’ Hayden said, adding that this signalled a new ‘red line’ for what the US would accept in regard to Tehran’s nuclear activities, The Jerusalem Post publishes this report on Monday.

BDST: 1704 HRS, DEC 02, 2013