“Iran may want to be close to weapon capacity”

Secrecy that Iran has about its enrichment process has raised suspicions that it may want to be close to creating nuclear weapons, believes Hans Blix, former UN weapons inspector.

“There has been some evidence, but not confirmed by the IAEA, that they were building missiles or sketching missiles which could hold nuclear weapons. It’s quite possible that they simply want to place themselves close to the capability to build nuclear weapons,” he added.

Iran has set a one month deadline for the West to accept its counter-proposal to a UN–drafted nuclear plan.

Iran has recently warned that, without an agreement, it will produce reactor fuel at a higher level of enrichment. Moreover, it has announced plans to build ten new enrichment plants.

“The latest information about the ten new enrichment plants is puzzling. Even big countries don’t have ten enrichment plants,” says Hans Blix.

“The world is worried that the enrichment capability that they are now building [raises] tensions in the Middle East. So it would be rational to persuade them to stay away from it,” Hans Blix also said about Iran.

Blix thinks that if Russia and the US begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons to zero, it will be easier to persuade all the countries in the world to live without them in the future.