Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told visiting EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton that "the real threat and problem to the region and the world is Iran."
According to Ynet, Lieberman added that Iran was trying to gain access to any country suffering from instability. "Please try to solve this problem first, and then our willingness to take risks in solving the Palestinian problem will increase," he added.
Ashton came to Israel on Tuesday from Tunisia as part of a tour that will also take her to the Palestinian Authority, Jordan and Lebanon. Her visit comes in advance of another Mideast peace Quartet meeting, which groups the European Union, the United States, Russia and the United Nations, scheduled in March in Brussels.
She was alo due to meet later in the day with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At a press conference in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, on Monday, Lieberman said that even with all the regional instability, what worried him most, both as Foreign Minister and as a private citizen, was the "Iranization of the region."
He said that following the breakdown of talks between the 5+1 powers and Iran in Istanbul in January, the Iranian issue had largely been pushed off the international agenda, even though Iran continued to pursue its nuclear programme. He added that he had given a directive to the ministry to "do everything to bring Iran back to the center of the international discussion."
"Wherever there is instability, they penetrate," he said of the Iranians. "When I look at the situation in Algeria, Tunisia and in the whole region, what bothers me is Iran."
Earlier, Ashton s said in a statement issued in Brussels that Iran's authorities must let anti-government protesters demonstrate as long as they do so peacefully, in a reaction to Monday's clashes between police and tens of thousands of protesters in central Tehran as opposition supporters tried to evoke the spirit of Egypt's recent popular uprising.
Police broke up the march with tear gas and reportedly placed leaders under house arrest.
"EU High Representative Catherine Ashton is closely following the events taking place in Iran and calls on the Iranian authorities to fully respect and protect the rights of their citizens, including freedom of expression and the right to assemble peacefully," the statement said.
Also commenting on the violent repression of opposition protests in Iran, European Parliament president Jerzy Buzek said that these events "show that the Iranian people want the same freedom the citizens of Tunisia and Egypt have been fighting for." "It is not - like the Iranian regime claims - that Egypt and Tunisia want to follow the example of the Islamic revolution of 1979," he added.
"Iranian opposition, including their leaders Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, should be able to carry out their political activity freely and without impediments. I call on the Iranian authorities to refrain from violence and respect the citizens' right to peaceful demonstration."
The two Iranian opposition leaders have reportedly been under house arrest since last week after they asked the government for permission to hold the February 14 rally in support of the uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The demonstrations of Iranian citizens and civil society that followed the fraudulent Presidential elections of 2009 showed the admirable determination of the Iranian citizens. Despite the intimidations and oppression by the authorities, this spirit is well alive among those committed and courageous Iranian citizens," said Buzek during the session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg.