UK's Hague sees Iran nuclear push leading to arms race

Iran is clearly trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, and if it succeeds it will set off a dangerous round of nuclear proliferation across the Middle East, British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in an interview published on Saturday.   

Iran says its uranium enrichment program is purely for civilian purposes, but Western powers suspect Tehran is trying to develop the ability to produce nuclear weapons.   

Western powers have been pressing Tehran to hold substantive talks on its nuclear program and want it to halt its uranium enrichment, but Iran says it has an absolute right to press ahead with its plans.   

Several rounds of increasingly punitive United Nations and Western sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to stop its enrichment program, some of which has been moved to underground buildings for greater security.   

The Iranians "are clearly continuing their nuclear weapons program," Hague told The Daily Telegraph. "If they obtain nuclear weapons capability, I think other nations across the Middle East will want to develop nuclear weapons."   

"The most serious round of nuclear proliferation since nuclear weapons were invented would have begun, with all the destabilizing effects in the Middle East, and the threat of a new Cold War in the Middle East without necessarily all the safety mechanisms," he said. "That would be a disaster in world affairs."   

Reuters