ElBaradei: “Iranian Nuclear Threat Was Exaggerated by the West”

Austrian Press Agency released on Tuesday an interview with former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, in which Mohammed ElBaradei asserts that the threat the Iranian nuclear program poses was exaggerated by the West.

ElBaradei says that the United States began suspecting that Iran had been building up a nuclear program in 2007, but that in fact Iranian attempt to do so had been stopped since 2003. “This assessment is still correct,” he added.

The former IAEA leader said he did not rule out the idea that in the context of the war between Iraq and Iran, Iran may have attempted to produce nuclear weapons as means to balance the existence of Iraqi chemical weapons.

He said that a country in Iran’s situation had a right to develop ways to defend itself but if Iran acquired such weapon it would become a major player in the Middle East.

In his opinion, Iran’s enrichment program was a message the authorities wanted to send out to its possible enemies, in the sense that the Islamic republic made a point by proving that it was capable of enriching uranium, since everyone knows that a country capable of enriching uranium can also build nuclear weapons.

ElBaradei accused the Western countries of having destroyed in the recent years the possibility of a treaty with Iran on nuclear energy by making many “unrealistic demands.”

He says he hoped President Barack Obama could resolve the situation with Iran during his term, and ascertained that the elimination of mutual suspicion between countries would be a step forward.

Without Iran, which is a major player in the Middle East, there is little hope for the resolution of the Afghan conflict or of the Syrian-Lebanese complex, ElBaradei added.