IAEA chief says will quit if Iran is attacked
Published: Friday, June 20, 2008
21:44GMT—5:44PM/EST
IAEA – IRAN – STRIKE – NUCLEAR
Washington, 20 June (IranVNC)—International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammed ElBaradei said today that a military strike on Iran would cause him to resign, and that it would embolden Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weaponry.
“If a military strike is carried out against Iran at this time … it would make me unable to continue my work,” Reuters reports ElBaradei as saying in an interview with Al Arabiya television. “It would turn the region into a fireball,” he added.
A report in the New York Times today said that Israel had carried out a large military exercise earlier this month, in what appeared to be a rehearsal for a military strike against Iran.
While the Israeli military refused to confirm or deny the report, the US military said the exercises were intended to send a message to Iran about the consequences of their refusal to comply with Western demands about nuclear proliferation.
But ElBaradei warned about the dire consequences of such an attack.
“If you do a military strike, it will mean that Iran, if it is not already making nuclear weapons, will launch a crash course to build nuclear weapons with the blessings of all Iranians, even those in the West,” he told the Dubai-based Arabic-language channel.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov today also warned against the use of force against Iran, saying there is not sufficient proof it is building a nuclear weapon.
Lavrov said the U.S. and Israel have been asked by Russia to provide evidence for their claims against Iran. “So far we have seen none, and the same conclusion was made by the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he was quoted by AP as saying.
Source: Reuters, Associated Press
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