Agence France-Presse, Iran has no need of nuclear weapons and is not on a path to war with the United States, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an interview with CBS television broadcast Sept. 23.
Ahmadinejad, who is in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, said Tehran’s nuclear ambitions were open and being conducted in accordance with the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency.
“You have to appreciate we don’t need a nuclear bomb. We don’t need that. What need do we have for a bomb?” the Iranian leader said in the interview, according to a transcript released by CBS television. “In political relations right now, the nuclear bomb is of no use.”
He added that there was no reason to think that the U.S. and Iran were on a collision course to war over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, which have been roundly condemned by the international community.
“It’s wrong to think that Iran and the U.S. are walking toward war. Who says so? Why should we go to war? There is no war in the offing.
“Our plan and program is very transparent. We are under the supervision of the agency. Everything is on the table. We have nothing to hide,” he said. “Our activities are very peaceful. The time of the bomb is past.”
Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been under international scrutiny and put Tehran under a raft of U.N.-backed sanctions, especially due to the Islamic regime’s attitude toward Israel.
Ahmadinejad has repeatedly called for the Jewish state to be wiped off the map and called into question the scale of the Holocaust.
He said that differences with the U.S. and much of the rest of the international community could be solved through diplomatic negotiations.
“If you have a difference of opinion, you can use logic to resolve your differences,” he said.
Iran earlier bluntly warned the U.S. against launching an attack, saying that U.S. forces in the region were well within the reach of its missiles.
“Today, the United States must know that their 200,000 soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan are within the reach of Iran’s fire,” said Yahya Rahim Safavi, the top military adviser to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. “When the Americans were beyond our shores, they were not within our reach but today it is very easy for us to deal them blows.”
His comments came at the start of an annual defense week, which Iran marked Sept. 22 by showing off its military prowess at a parade in Tehran — including a new longer-range missile that could reach Israel.
