Iran 'will have nuclear arms'

05mar06

IRAN will have nuclear weapons within five years, Russian experts believe.


"Iran is seeking to equip itself with nuclear weapons and will succeed in doing so sooner or later," a report presented to the Russian foreign and defence policy council claimed.

"A minority of experts believe that will happen in the space of between six months and one or two years. The majority think it will take several years, up to five years."

News of the report emerged shortly after Iran and the European Union announced in Vienna they had failed to strike a deal to prevent Tehran being sent to the UN Security Council about its nuclear activities.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said his country would not be bullied and it would refuse to stop uranium enrichment.

European officials -- including the foreign ministers of France and Germany -- described the talks as a failure because of Tehran's refusal to freeze enrichment.

Iran denies it is seeking to develop a nuclear bomb as the US has charged, but has so far refused to promise not to develop technology that would allow it to make an atomic weapon.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, meets tomorrow to consider a report that could lead to Iran being referred to the Security Council and sanctions being adopted.

"In any event . . . the world would do well to start now to get used to the idea of co-existing with an Iranian nuclear power," the Russian report advised.

Tehran would not use nuclear weapons, the experts forecast. Nor would it pass on nuclear know-how to other countries or extremist organisations, they said.

But some experts feared that if Iran acquired a nuclear weapon, it could "encourage other countries in the region -- Saudi Arabia or Egypt -- to create an Arab bomb".

They thought "there was little chance that the US would carry out strikes on Iranian territory in the near future".

But they believed the zone stretching from Afghanistan to North Africa would remain a major centre of "Islamist global terrorism" and the danger of the spread of weapons of mass destruction would continue to grow.

"Many (states) are ready to relaunch their nuclear program so as not to become another Iraq," the report said.

heraldsun