UK warns Israel not to attack Iran.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague warned Israel on Sunday that it would not be "wise" to attack Iran over its disputed nuclear program, urging Tel Aviv to give the diplomatic route a chance to succeed.

Speaking in the wake of heightened tensions between Iran and Israel in recent weeks, in which both sides have accused the other of assassination attempts on their citizens, Hague said it was important to focus on restarting dialogue.

"I don't think the wise thing at this moment is for Israel to launch a military attack on Iran,” he told the BBC.

"I think Israel, like everybody else in the world, should be giving a real chance to the approach that we have adopted, of very serious economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure, and the readiness to negotiate with Iran,” he said.

In recent weeks, there has been feverish speculation that Israel was considering a potentially illegal strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but Tel Aviv has denied reaching such a decision.

Hague said the Israelis had not shared any such plans with Britain, stressing: "We are not part of any planning to attack Iran.”

"We don't take any options off the table... But our approach is 100 percent diplomatically and economically focused to bring Iran successfully to the negotiating table."

Iran said this week it was ready to resume stalled talks on its nuclear drive, prompting a cautious welcome from the United States and the EU.

"They have indicated in the last few days a new readiness to negotiate. Whether that is going to be on any meaningful basis, one has to be skeptical," Hague said.

The head of the US military said he believed it would be "premature" to take military action against Iran, in an interview to be aired Sunday.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN that the United States and its allies should be better prepared for a military option.

"I think it would be premature to exclusively decide that the time for a military option was upon us," Dempsey said, according to excerpts of the interview released by CNN.

"I think that the economic sanctions and the international cooperation that we've been able to gather around sanctions is beginning to have an effect," he added.

Last week former UN weapons inspector Hanz Blix cautioned that any attack on Iran would lead to disaster.

Blix, notorious for his role in searching for Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction before the US invasion in 2003, said: "Bombing Iranian nuclear installations may be a path to disaster rather than to a solution.”

“Iranian leaders are not going to sit quietly and twiddle their thumbs . . . A war in the Gulf and skyrocketing of oil and gas prices are not exactly what a financially troubled world needs right now,” he added.

Tensions between Israel and Iran flared following bombings which allegedly targeted Israeli diplomats in New Delhi, Tbilisi and Bangkok last week. Tehran rejected accusations that it was behind the acts, pointing out that Israel is the main suspect in the assassination of a number of its well-respected scientists.