Report: Iran will promise UN not to seek bomb

Ynetnews - A news agency says Iran plans to submit a written promise to the United Nations that it will not seek nuclear weapons.

The Tuesday report by the semi-official Mehr news agency quotes Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi as saying, "Iran plans to declare in the UN that it will never go after nuclear bombs."

Rahimi did not say when the promise would be delivered.

He charged that the Western sanctions aim to thwart Iran's "scientific progress." Several rounds of sanctions aimed at the nuclear program have impacted heavily on Iran's economy.

Iran has repeatedly denied West suspicions that it is pursuing weapons construction under cover of its nuclear program.

In 2005, Iran's top leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious edict "banning production, storage and use of nuclear weapons."

Meanwhile, while testifying before a Senate panel on the US intelligence community's overview of global threats US Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper said that Tehran is developing nuclear capabilities to enhance its security and influence and "give it the ability to develop a nuclear weapon."

But the report stopped short of saying a decision has been made.

"We do not know if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons," the report said.

Clapper explained that in the last year, Iran has made progress in working toward producing weapons-grade uranium. However, the report said Iran "could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon-worth of weapons-grade uranium before this activity is discovered."

The assessment on Iran comes shortly before US President Barack Obama's trip to Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the world has until this summer at the latest to keep Tehran from building a bomb.

The Israeli leader repeatedly has indicated Israel is willing to strike militarily to stop Iran, a step that would likely drag in the United States.