The UN atomic watchdog’s hardest-hitting report to date on Iran’s suspected nuclear weap-ons drive did not constitute a “smoking gun” proving the Iranians “are on the verge of making a nuclear weap-on”, nuclear experts said Wednesday, while Moscow made it clear it would not support new, tougher sanctions against Iran.
A Russian statement read: “Any additional sanctions against Iran will be seen ... as an instrument for regime change in Iran. That is unacceptable to us.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency said in a keenly-awaited report late Tuesday it had broadly “credible” intelligence suggesting Iran had done work towards building nuclear warheads.
“That isn’t new blockbuster information,” said Peter Crail from the Arms Control Associat-ion in Washington. “It’s just more detail behind the current assessments, that Iran is trying to build different aspects of a nuclear weapons programme, but that it hasn’t yet made a decision to put all those together and actually pursue a bomb.”
Iranian officials slam-med the report as “baseless” and “politically motivated”, and Presi-dent Mahmoud Ahmadi-nejad vowed Tehran would not budge “one iota”, accusing the IAEA of running “absurd US claims”. His commanders threatened to take the battle “to the streets of Tel Aviv”. Referring to a planned Israeli strike on Iran, Tehran’s deputy military chief Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri said: “The smallest action by Israel (against Iran) ... and we will see its destruction.” — AFP, PTI