Iran will join the global nuclear club within one month, according to the deputy research chief of the Islamic republic’s Atomic Energy of Iran (AEOI).

Fars on Tuesday quoted Behzad Soltani, who also serves as the secretary-general of the AEOI’s Scientific Cooperation Council, as saying that “no country would ever think about attacking Iran” once the nuclear threshold has been crossed.

"We do not intend to use the peaceful nuclear energy merely for generating electricity and energy, rather our next step would be expanding use of this technology,” Soltani reportedly said. Radiation, he said, can ensure that “foodstuff, proteins and vegetables are preserved for a longer time and with a higher quality.”


Soltani added that construction work on a large-scale nuclear powerplant and a smaller research reactor in the Iranian city of Arak is nearing completion and is now at 70 percent.

The technology, he said, would enable Iran to improve its political, economic and technological standing. "Iran's mighty nuclear independence [will] intermingle with economic growth, expansion of technology and political power in the international arena," Soltani suggested.

In the shadow of the nuclear conference in Washington, Iran expressed uncertainty earlier Tuesday over the possibility that China would back new sanctions against it.

The West fears Iran's nuclear program masks ambitions to obtain a nuclear weapon, a claim Teheran denies.