Iran already a nuclear state, claims Ahmadinejad

New York: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared that his country is a nuclear power and should be treated as such. During an interview with an Egyptian newspaper on the eve of his visit to Cairo, he also stressed that his regime has no plans to use that capability for an attack on Israel. Ahmadinejad told the newspaper Al-Ahram, according to the Israeli website Haaretz, that Iran is ‘already an industrial and nuclear country, a country that has conquered space.’ He added that for years Iran has been thinking about sending a human being into space, and that they will do it soon. In Ahmadinejad’s remarks about Israel, he cast the Jewish state as the aggressor and said Iran is focused on protecting itself, the New York Daily News reports. He said that the purpose of their nuclear programme is defense, and not to target Israel. (ANI)