( Itar-Tass ) - Iran's nuclear activity is absolutely peaceful, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told Itar-Tass in an exclusive interview.
"Our progress towards mastering nuclear technologies is absolutely transparent and our nuclear activity is peaceful," the Iranian leader said. "This is a road of peace based on the law. The Iranian nation is an honest and calm nation and it does not wish to create tensions. The West takes advantage of this and lays ever more claims. As you have been able to see for many years they (Western countries - Itar-Tass) have repeatedly tried to push the Iranian nuclear dossier from its natural track in the IAEA, to shift it into a politicized dimension, and dictate to Iran a mode of action that would be to their liking," Ahmadinejad said. "However, the Iranian nation has held firm to present a common front, and the friends of the Iranian nation provided support. The Iranian nuclear dossier is now before the IAEA for consideration and this is correct. Research and control is the agency's job. The IAEA always has questions to its members, and those questions are to be answered. These days the IAEA has ten times more questions addressed to the European countries, than to Iran. And some of those questions are far more complicated. Lastly, we can ask the Americans by virtue of what kind of right they have been testing fifth generation atom bombs. What have they been doing this for? Why do they go ahead with arms buildups? Why do they provoke East-West confrontations?"
"I believe that the atom bomb is no longer effective. The Americans have bogged down in Iraq. They do have the bomb, the fifth generation bomb. But can it help them Iraq? No, it cannot."
The full version of the interview with the Iranian president will go on the air in the Formula of Power program on Russia's second television channel (Rossiya) at 11:20, Moscow time, on October 20.