Bush: Iran has right to civilian nuclear program

Reuters:

President George W. Bush on Tuesday said Iran had a right to a civilian nuclear program if it did not gain expertise or materials to build an atomic weapon.

The United States is concerned that Iran's nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons, and Bush said he would be "speaking candidly about Iran" with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who are gathering in New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

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"It is very important for the world to understand that Iran with a nuclear weapon will be incredibly destabilizing," Bush said at a news conference with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani. "And therefore we must work together to prevent them from having the wherewithal to develop a nuclear weapon."

Iran says it has every right to develop nuclear technology to generate electricity, while the United States and the European Union want the U.N. Security Council to take up Iran's case after it resumed uranium processing last month.

The United States last month explicitly accepted for the first time that Iran could develop civilian nuclear programs, backing an EU proposal to allow Tehran to pursue atomic power in exchange for giving up fuel work.