The "time has come" to deal with Iran, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said Sunday, refusing to rule out military action to curb the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions.

Barak, speaking on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS program, indicated that Israel's patience was wearing thin -- and provided an ominous response when asked about the growing speculation of an Israeli military strike.

"I don't think that that is a subject for public discussion," he said. "But I can tell you that the IAEA report has a sobering impact on many in the world, leaders as well as the publics, and people understand that the time has come."

The International Atomic Energy Agency published a report on November 8 saying there was "credible" information that Iran was carrying out "activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device."

On Friday the IAEA's board passed a resolution condemning Iran's nuclear activities, but stopped short of reporting Tehran to the United Nations and issuing no deadline for compliance.

"People understand now that Iran is determined to reach nuclear weapons," said Barak. There is "no other possible or conceivable explanation for what they have been actually doing. And that should be stopped."

The IAEA report -- based on "broadly, credible" intelligence, its own information and some input from Iran itself -- said that Iran had examined how to fit out a Shahab 3 missile, with a range capable of reaching Israel, with a nuclear warhead.

Tehran rejected the report "baseless," denies it is seeking nuclear weapons and maintains its nuclear activities are for civilian energy purposes.

Washington, Paris and London however jumped on the report as justification to increase pressure on Iran, already under four rounds of Security Council sanctions and additional US and European Union restrictions.

Iran ready to cooperate 'further' with IAEA
Tehran (AFP) Nov 20, 2011 - Iran is ready to cooperate "further" with the UN atomic energy watchdog if it "balances its approach" to the Islamic republic, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday, according to the ISNA news agency.

"We are prepared to cooperate with the agency more than ever, if the (UN) agency balances its approach and complies with its statutes and the safeguard agreements," Salehi was quoted as saying.

"If that is the case, we are prepared to cooperate much the same as before and even further with the agency," he said.

The conditional offer was made after a vote Friday by the board of the UN watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, calling for more cooperation from Iran on its nuclear programme.

The vote followed a November 8 IAEA report that strongly suggested Iran -- despite its repeated denials -- was researching nuclear weapons under cover of its civilian atomic activities.

The IAEA resolution -- worded to pass muster with Iran's allies Russia and China -- notably stopped short of sending the matter to the UN Security Council.

Instead, it said it was "essential for Iran and the Agency to intensify their dialogue" and called on Tehran "to comply fully and without delay with its obligations under relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council."

It gave no deadline for those demands to be met, but said IAEA head Yukiya Amano would report to the board in March on Tehran's implementation of the resolution.

Amano said last Thursday he had proposed sending a high-level team to Iran to "clarify the issues" in the IAEA report, and asked Tehran "to engage substantively with the agency without delay."

The UN Security Council has already imposed four sets of sanctions on Iran to pressure it to halt its nuclear activities.

Iran's deputy chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri, said, according to the website of Iran's state television, that Washington had "failed" in a bid to again have the IAEA refer Iran's nuclear programme to the Security Council.

Iran's representative at the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, was quoted by the ISNA news agency Saturday as saying Iran had already invited IAEA officials to visit to discuss questions raised in the report.

"The director general's announcement that the agency is now ready to send a team of inspectors must be studied again and the result will be announced after that," he said.