Iran 'years' from creating nuclear weapons

IRAN is still several years away from acquiring a nuclear weapons capability, according to a study published by an influential British think-tank.

The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) has assessed Iran's nuclear, chemical, biological and long-range missile activities. It says a diplomatic showdown with the EU and the US could be inevitable. Iran's political restraint thus far may not last, the report says.

One of the authors, Gary Samore, said it might take five years for Iran to overcome all the technical difficulties to produce a nuclear weapon. But given Tehran's cautious behaviour so far, a decision on whether to build such a capability may be much farther off.

"They're trying to avoid international reaction and I think it's perhaps more likely that they would try to develop their nuclear capabilities over a much longer period of time - a decade or 15 years," he said.

The assessment from the IISS comes two weeks before a meeting in Vienna to discuss Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Meanwhile, an EU initiative to offer Iran incentives to abandon sensitive nuclear work is at an end unless Tehran halts uranium conversion. A senior EU diplomat said the next step was for the International Atomic Energy Agency to report Iran's nuclear programme to the UN Security Council, although it was a long way from discussing sanctions against Iraq.

"With the Iranian rejection of the European proposal and the restarting of the conversion plant in Isfahan, it did seem to us that the Paris process had ended," he said. An Iranian change of heart "doesn't seem remotely likely".