'If you quoted him right, he is absolutely wrong,' Iran's envoy to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters when asked to respond to comments made by Mr ElBaradei in a BBC interview.

Mr ElBaradei told the British broadcaster he believed that for Iran securing a nuclear weapon was 'the road to get that recognition and power and prestige.' 'My gut feeling (is) that Iran definitely would like to have the technology... that would enable it to have nuclear weapon,' Mr ElBaradei said.

'But the ultimate aim of Iran as I understand it is they want to be recognised as a major power in the Middle East, and they are, and this is to them the road to get that recognition to power and prestige.'

Iranian ambassador Soltanieh rejected the comments.

'We don't have any intention of having a nuclear weapon at all. A nuclear weapon is not in our defence doctrine,' he said. We do not consider a nuclear weapon (to be) any advantage. We consider it as vulnerability for us. We never had this and we will never have nuclear weapon.'

Tehran was simply seeking to have nuclear technology, 'particularly enrichment for our peaceful purposes. That is our policy. This is the policy of Iran,' Mr Soltanieh said.

Then, in what was clearly a slip of the tongue, Mr Soltanieh said that 'the whole Iranian nation are united ... on (the) inalienable right of (having) nuclear weapon.'

According to the IAEA's latest report on Iran, the Islamic republic is still defying the UN Security Council and has amassed 1,339 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride.

Analysts say between 1,000 and 1,700 kilogrammes of low-enriched uranium would be needed to make enough highly-enriched uranium for a single atomic bomb. -- AFP