The Zionist international affairs minister on Thursday said there were "small differences" with the United States over the Iranian nuclear issue, a week after direct talks between Tehran and world powers.

The Zionist international affairs minister on Thursday said there were "small differences" with the United States over the Iranian nuclear issue, a week after direct talks between Tehran and world powers.

"We generally see eye to eye with the Americans on the final objective... but there are sometimes small differences over the way to do that," Yuval Steinitz, who is also intelligence minister, told the Zionist public radio.

Steinitz, who was on a visit with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the US to discuss Iran, did not elaborate further, but urged not to lift sanctions against Tehran until there is "an agreement guaranteeing 100 percent that Iran will never be able to have a nuclear weapon."

Steinitz said his entity of occupation does not oppose Iran's right to civilian nuclear energy, but insisted it must not be able to enrich its own uranium, which is required for nuclear fuel but can also be used to develop a warhead.

The Zionist entity, the Middle East's sole if undeclared nuclear-armed power, wants Iran to meet four conditions before the sanctions are eased: halting all uranium enrichment; removing all enriched uranium from its territory; closing its underground nuclear facility in Qom; and halting construction of a plutonium reactor.