Iran wants option of nuclear weapon, ElBaradei says (Roundup)

Jun 17, 2009, 16:42 GMT

London/Vienna - Iran firmly believes in having the strategic option of a nuclear weapon, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in a BBC interview Wednesday, a notion that was rejected outright by Iran.

'It is my gut feeling that Iran would like to have the technology to enable it to have nuclear weapons,' said ElBaradei, who believes the country is mastering nuclear technology.

'They want to send a message to their neighbours, to the rest of the world: Don't mess with us. But the ultimate aim of Iran, as I understand it, is they want to be recognized as a major power in the Middle East,' the IAEA Director General said.

Iran's ambassador at the IAEA in Vienna rejected ElBaradei's comments.

'If you quoted him right, he's absolutely wrong,' Ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters on the sidelines of an meeting of the IAEA's governing board. 'We don't have any intention of having a nuclear weapon at all.'

Such weapons are not part of Iran's defence doctrine, and the nuclear programme serves only peaceful purposes, the diplomat said.

ElBaradei said in his interview that Iran sees its nuclear programme as an insurance policy against regime change.

He urged western countries to engage with Iran to remove the incentive for making a bomb.

Iran has so far not taken up the offer by the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China for wide-ranging talks to settle the nuclear issue and improve relations.

Tehran has ignored Security Council resolutions calling for a halt of the enrichment programme and answering outstanding questions about possible nuclear-weapons-related studies in the past. It has also not allowed more thorough IAEA inspections.

The Egyptian IAEA chief also made it clear that he expected Iran to increase its cooperation with his agency.

'You have to help me,' ElBaradei told Soltanieh at the board meeting, according to a participant. Iran should clarify the studies and cooperate to prove that the allegations are not true.

The United States said in the board meeting that Iran's refusal to fully cooperate with the nuclear agency 'deeply undermines Iran's assertion that its nuclear programme is exclusively peaceful in nature.'

US envoy Geoffrey Pyatt reminded the 35 board member countries member countries that Iran possesses or is near possessing enough uranium material to produce one nuclear weapon, if it decided to do so.

He reiterated the United States' commitment to finding a diplomatic solution in the nuclear row with Tehran.

ElBaradei suggested it might help to get talks going if Iran stopped expanding its uranium enrichment plant, while the Security Council refrains from adopting new sanctions.