VIENNA (Xinhua) -- The threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program had been exaggerated by the West, former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) director general Mohamed ElBaradei said in a published interview.

The interview was conducted by the Austrian Press Agency (APA) and published on Tuesday.
In the interview, ElBaradei said the U.S. intelligence agencies believed Iran had been developing nuclear weapons, according to a report issued in 2007, but in fact had stopped these efforts as early as 2003. “Today, this assessment is still correct,” he said.
ElBaradei also said he didn’t rule out that Iran did try to develop nuclear weapons in the 1980s, in the circumstances of Iran’s war against Iraq and the threat of Iraq’s chemical weapons attacks.
“Every country in this situation would have to think about how to defend itself,” he said and added that the nuclear program certainly could help Iran become a “major player in the Middle East.”
The former UN nuclear watchdog chief also accused the West of having thwarted an agreement with Iran in recent years by “unrealistic demands.” Furthermore, “some practices are unbearable for any country.”
To this end, he expressed hope that U.S. President Barack Obama would contribute to a smooth solution for the Iran issue during his term in office and pointed out one of the important points was to ease mutual suspicion between the U.S. and Iran.
Iran is one of the most important countries in the Middle East, which could become “a key to stability in the Middle East. Without Iran’s participation, it is also hard to solve the Afghanistan issue and the Syria-Lebanon complex”, ElBaradei said.
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