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Appearing on ABC's current affairs programme This Week, host George Stephanopoulos asked Mr Biden whether the Israeli position was the right approach. The vice-president replied: "Israel can determine for itself - it's a sovereign nation - what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." He added that this was the case, "whether we agree or not" with the Israeli view.

Asked whether the US would stand in the way if the Israelis decided to launch a military attack against Iranian nuclear facilities, Mr Biden said Israel, like the US, had a right to "determine what is in its interests".

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, responded to Mr Biden's remarks while on a visit to Tokyo. Iran would respond "in a very full-scale and very decisive way" to an Israeli attack, he said. "I think that America and Israel are fully aware what kind of result such a wrong judgement will entail," he said in remarks quoted by AFP news agency. "Israel showed its military power sufficiently in the 22-day war [in Gaza]. That kind of erroneous judgement poses a threat to the entire Middle Eastern region and the world."