WASHINGTON: Mohamed ElBaradei, the outgoing head of the UN atomic watchdog, called the threat from Iran "hyped" and said there was no evidence that the Islamic republic will soon have nuclear weapons.
In an interview released Tuesday, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) hit back at critics who accuse the Egyptian of covering up Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"In many ways, I think the threat has been hyped," ElBaradei told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based magazine critical of nuclear weapons. "Yes, there's concern about Iran's future intentions and Iran needs to be more transparent with the IAEA and international community," he said.
"But the idea that we'll wake up tomorrow and Iran will have a nuclear weapon is an idea that isn't supported by the facts as we have seen them so far," he said.
In a report last week, the IAEA said that Iran had slowed production of enriched uranium, which can be used to make a nuclear bomb, and agreed to tighter monitoring of its enrichment plant.
The United States downplayed the report, saying that Iran was still not cooperating fully with the UN inspectors.
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