Iran dismisses US nuclear bomb statement

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(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-03-02 22:04

TEHRAN -- Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi on Monday dismissed the statement by a top US military officer that Tehran was believed to have enough nuclear material to make a bomb, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Any statement regarding the production of a nuclear bomb is "baseless" and "untechnical," Qashqavi told reporters at a press conference.

"We have repeatedly said that manufacturing atomic bombs has no place in our defensive doctrine," he said, adding that Tehran's nuclear activities were carried out under direct supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and within the reach of its surveillance cameras.

"How is it possible that the enrichment level of 3-4 percent suddenly mounts to 90 percent (the level which is needed to produce an atomic bomb)?" he said.

Qashqavi's comments came just a day after US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen said Washington believed Iran has enough material to make a nuclear bomb. US Defense Secretary Robert Gates later rejected Mullen's claim, saying that Iran was not close to building atomic weapon.

"Iran favors a world free from weapons of mass destruction," Qashqavi added, reiterating that Tehran's nuclear program was only for civil purposes and generating electricity.

In a report submitted last month to the UN Security Council, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei said Iran still refused to fulfill UN's requirement of stopping its uranium enrichment activity.

Iran's uranium enrichment program is questioned by many parties. Western countries like the United States claim that Iran intends to secretly develop nuclear weapons, while the UN Security Council also requires Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activity.

However, Iran insists that its nuclear plan is only for peaceful purposes, and continues its uranium enrichment activity despite pressure from the western countries and relevant resolutions and sanctions of the United Nations.

Iran last Wednesday launched a test run of its first nuclear power plant which is being built by a Russian contractor near the southern Iranian port city of Bushehr and vowed to continue to install more centrifuges.