JERUSALEM/BRUSSELS (EJP)—Irans’ uranium enrichment program could allow it to build a nuclear weapon “in two weeks” in order to “put down Israel,” an Iranian lawmaker and cleric said according to Iranin press reports.
Muhammad Nabavian said that Iran would be able to build a nuclear bomb in “two weeks” if it gets “access to 270 kilograms of 20 percent [enriched uranium], 10 tons of 5 percent, and 20 thousand centrifuges.”
“We are not looking for a nuclear bomb, but having a nuclear bomb is necessary to put down Israel,” he said.
Iran and world powers are to meet in Geneva on Thursday to iron out remaining obstacles in implementing a nuclear deal struck in November.
The two-day meeting will bring together deputy negotiators from Iran and the so-called P5+1 group of world powers, Michael Mann, spokesman for European Union foreign policy chief Catherine >Ashton said.
Technical experts from Iran and the EU-chaired P5+1 — comprising the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany — held two sessions in Geneva in mid and late December as they seek to fine-tune a deal reached on November 24.
Under the deal, Iran is to curb parts of its nuclear drive for six months in exchange for modest relief from international sanctions and a promise by Western powers not to impose new measures against the Iranian economy, which has been battered by the embargo. If they succeed, they plan to start talks on a long-term deal to resolve a more than decade-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
In early December, experts also held four days of talks in Vienna – seat of the International Atomic Energy Agency — but the Iranians walked out after Washington expanded its sanctions blacklist against Tehran.
But according to diplomats, the negotiations between Iran and the six world have run into problems over a new model of advanced nuclear centrifuge that Iran says it has installed.
Centrifuges are machines that purify uranium for use as fuel in atomic power plants or, if purified to a high level, weapons.
“This issue [centrifuges]was among the main factors in stopping the previous technical discussions on Dec. 19-21,” a Western diplomat was quoted as saying.