ALMATY (AFP) - Iran's foreign minister criticized Friday what he called the international community's silence over an apparent admission by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency reported.

"We can criticize the UN Security Council on this topic," Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as saying during a visit to Kazakhstan.

"The international community must react in an appropriate way."

"The era of nuclear weapons is over and these weapons now have no influence and have no effect," he added.

On Monday Olmert appeared to admit -- in breach of the Jewish state's decades-long policy of ambiguity -- that Israel possessed such weapons.