Iran Not Building Nuclear Bomb, Ahmadinejad Tells NBC (Update2)

By Robin Stringer

July 28 (Bloomberg) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told NBC News that Iran isn't developing nuclear weapons and the country would respond positively to a new approach from the U.S.

``We are not working to manufacture a bomb,'' NBC's Brian Williams quoted Ahmadinejad as saying following an interview with the president in Tehran. ``Nuclear weapons are so 20th century.''

In the interview aired today, Ahmadinejad said through an interpreter he sees ``new behavior'' by the United States. ``My question is, is such behavior rooted in a new approach?''

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns and other diplomats met in Geneva on July 19 with Iranian officials including top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, offering Iran economic and diplomatic incentives to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can produce energy or an atomic bomb.

The diplomats at the highest-level meeting between American and Iranian officials since the 1979 Islamic revolution asked Iran to answer within two weeks.

``We've been hearing some different things out of Iran,'' State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos told reporters in Washington today. ``What we're looking for is, at the end of the two weeks, a definitive statement through the normal channels, Jalili to Solana, on where the Iranians stand.''

`New Situation'

Ahmadinejad said that if the U.S. approach changes, ``we will be facing a new situation and the response by the Iranian people will be a positive one.''

Although Iran's tone has softened, ``they haven't agreed to a slowdown in progress, not withstanding all the hints they would be doing so,'' Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow for non- proliferation at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies policy group, said in a telephone interview.

``Of course he says they aren't producing a bomb, but they are producing the wherewithal to make a bomb once they have the enrichment capability.''

The Iranian president also said crude oil is overvalued in part because of manipulation, according to Williams.

Iran is the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Crude oil for September delivery rose 0.7 percent to $124.17 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices are up about 60 percent from a year ago.

`Great Nation'

Asked whether Iran would consider ceasing uranium enrichment -- a key demand of the U.S. and other United Nations Security Council members, who have slapped three rounds of sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt the process -- Ahmadinejad said the Islamic Republic is ``a great nation with a great economy,'' and doesn't need ``the services, if I can use the word, of a few countries.''

Iran has threatened to blockade the Straits of Hormuz, an export channel for a quarter of the world's oil, if its nuclear facilities are targeted.

Iran has said its nuclear program is for domestic energy and lawful under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which the country is a member.

Ahmadinejad said on July 26 the country had 6,000 centrifuges for enrichment, which would be up from 3,500 earlier this year.

That number is a ``typical exaggeration,'' Fitzpatrick said. He said Iran actually has about 3,000 operational centrifuges, which could enrich enough uranium to create one atomic weapon by the end of 2009.

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