The U.S. assessment remains that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon, a U.S. official said, apparently pushing back against claims to the contrary by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

“We believe that there is time and space to continue to pursue a diplomatic path, backed by growing international pressure on the Iranian government,” Reuters quoted a National Security Council spokesman as saying “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.”

The report Thursday came after Barak affirmed in an interview on Israel Radio a report in Ha’aretz that a new U.S. intelligence assessment of Iran’s nuclear capability was closer to Israel’s assessment that a weapon was imminent.

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The assessment Barak claimed was circulating among top U.S. officials “comes very close to our own estimate, I would say, as opposed to earlier American estimates. It transforms the Iranian situation to an even more urgent one and it is even less likely that we will know every development in time on the Iranian nuclear program.”

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