Iran wants nuclear arms: NEA head

By Daniel Fineren

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons and not energy, the head of the OECD's nuclear energy advisory board said on Tuesday.

"My personal opinion is that you can not explain what the Iranians have been doing for the last 20 years if it is not for nuclear weapons," Luis Echavarri, director of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) told the Reuters Global Energy Summit in London.

He stressed that this was his own view and that the NEA advised OECD member states on the safe and economic use of nuclear energy, not on nuclear proliferation issues.

Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at producing energy so it can export more of the gas that it currently uses to fuel power stations. Many countries, led by the United States, accuse Tehran of trying to build nuclear weapons.

Echavarri, who led the construction of Spain's Almaraz-2 nuclear power plant before moving to Spain's nuclear safety regulator and then to the NEA in Paris, dismissed Iran's arguments that its program was for civil purposes.

"For the simple use of nuclear power it does not make any sense at all, it's a disaster economically," he said.

"After 35 years of working in civil uses of nuclear power it is impossible to find a rationality to that from the point of view of producing kilowatt hours," he added.