The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Washington

UN atomic watchdog chief Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday he had no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with recent bellicose rhetoric. "We haven't received any information there is a parallel, ongoing, active nuclear weapon program," the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN. "Second, even if Iran were to be working on nuclear weapons t they are at least (a) few years away from having such weapon," he said, citing Washington's own intelligence assessments. "My fear (is) that if we continue to escalate from both sides that we will end up into a precipice, we will end up into an abyss. The Middle East is in a total mess, to say the least. And we cannot add fuel to the fire." The White House Friday rejected any parallels between its Iran rhetoric and the run-up to the Iraq war, after fresh sanctions on Tehran and escalating US warnings fueled comparisons to the months before the 2003 invasion.