Nobel Prize to IAEA 'warning' to Iran: Peres

JERUSALEM (AFP) - Israeli Nobel Peace Prize winner Shimon Peres said that bestowing this year's prize on the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its chief was a warning to Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"It is a warning to Iran because Iran is today the biggest and most dangerous problem," the deputy prime minister told public radio.

The IAEA has found Iran in breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is threatening to bring the country before the UN Security Council.

Peres repeated frequent accusations from Israel that its arch enemy is trying to develop nuclear weapons.

"All diplomatic, psychological and other efforts will be made to stop such a weapon from falling into the hands of the dangerous ayatollahs," he added, alluding to the Islamic republic's regime.

Peres is considered the "father" of Israel's nuclear technology for creating in the 1950s with France, the only known nuclear power station in the country.

Israel has not signed the NPT and is believed to be the only nuclear power in the Middle East, although it neither confirms nor denies reports that it has about 200 nuclear warheads.