An Israeli delegation has travelled to the US in a bid to persuade the country that Iran still seeks nuclear weapons, according to the Israeli media.
The trip comes after a US intelligence report concluded that Iran had abandoned such programmes.
The Israeli team, which includes intelligence experts, reportedly left for the US last week.
Israel will hold additional meetings with US officials to persuade them of the threat and to present their own intelligence material, officials said.
But on Sunday, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, criticised comments by one of his ministers that criticised the US report as misguided.
The US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran, released on December 3, said that Iran halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003 "in response to international pressure".
It also said that it could state with "moderate confidence" that the programme had not restarted.
Critical assessment
Avi Dichter, Israel's public security minister, had criticised the assessment, saying it could lead to a regional war that would threaten Israel.
"Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analysing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat," he said on Sunday.
He also suggested that Israel could no longer trust the US intelligence.
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"Something went wrong in the American blueprint for analysing the severity of the Iranian nuclear threat"
Avi Dichter, Israeli Public Security Minister |
Distancing himself from Dichter's comments, Olmert said during Israel's weekly cabinet meeting that they "did not improve our ties with the US", according to senior government official.
Olmert has himself rejected the report, saying that Iran continues its activities to attain components necessary to produce nuclear weapons.
Israel has for years been warning that Iran is working on nuclear weapons and has backed the US in its international efforts to exert pressure on Iran to stop the programme.
However, Iran says its programme is only for peaceful purposes, with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, calling the NIE report a "great victory" for Iran.