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Dubai: Former United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iran could produce a nuclear bomb within five years and said there were some similarities with pre-invasion Iraq. "The gradual escalation of tension between the US and Iran, the threat of UN Security Council action, are similar to the situation leading up to Iraq but there are also differences," Blix told Gulf News from Jakarta. "Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, which the US would have discovered if they had looked carefully," Blix said. However, "Iran has plenty of nuclear knowledge and in that sense is more a basis of concern."
The UN Security Council and Germany have offered a package of incentives to Iran in return for it to halt its initial steps at uranium enrichment.
The large-scale enrichment of uranium can fuel nuclear stations or be used in a weapon. Iran has not given a formal response yet to the package. "It is important to remember," Blix said "that because you have a right to enrichment does not automatically mean that you should exercise that right. The reduction of tension is important." Blix believes that if Iran was determined to have a nuclear weapon then this could be achieved within a five-year framework. "By 2010 or 2011, if they wanted it, they could produce a nuclear weapon. It's a matter of will." Even though most nations believed that Iran had a right to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, Blix said, the Western powers would be "very firm" against large-scale enrichment.
"Look at North Korea, they have produced a bomb with far less knowledge than Iran. I think that the West is saying to Iran that you can have nuclear energy but please stay away from enrichment. That is why there are incentives on offer," he said.
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