First Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister H E Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabor Al Thani with IAEA chief Dr Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday.

Doha: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has called on the world for calm on the Iran nuclear issue, saying there was no imminent threat from Tehran.

There is a lot of hype, IAEA chief, Dr Mohamed ElBaradei, said here on Thursday of Tehran’s nuclear agenda, adding that a fine line needs to be drawn between hype and reality.

He expressed confidence that the issue can be resolved through negotiations. “The parties involved, including the US, are to sit together and thrash out the issue.”

Iran has the right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but what is suspected is the future of its nuclear programme,” said ElBaradei.

For 18 years, the country has been “underground” under the sanctions and “we don’t know what happened in this period”. Iran needs to be fully transparent and convince the world of the peaceful intentions of its nuclear plans.

ElBaradei was guest speaker at a special event of Doha Debates with BBC’s Tim Sebastian. The largely attended talk show mainly comprised student audiences from the Qatar Foundation.

One needs to act on facts, ElBaradei said in a veiled reference to the US. A lesson should be learnt from Iraq, which is in a mess. “I was very clear that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction,” said ElBaradei. So, Iraq is not the best model of how to deal with a problem. Force does not solve a problem.

The IAEA chief, however, refused to make a comparison between Iran and Iraq in reply to a question over whether the former would meet the same fate as the latter.

Asked how the IAEA would react if the US nevertheless decided to attack Iran, El Baradei said: "The (UN) Security Council has to say…we hope the world would not reach that hypothesis…to talk of war is counter-productive."

Responding to a question on what happens if Iran decides to walk out of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT), El Baradei said that would not let Tehran off the hook. "The problem is to be resolved through peaceful means."

The Middle East is already facing a host of problems and adding fuel to the fire is not advisable. There is already turmoil in Afghanistan and Palestine. "I see Syria and Lebanon facing difficulties. The region has to catch up with the rest of the world or left to lag behind."

Poverty is not the cause of the woes the region faces. The governments are abusing human rights and people feel humiliated. They want to be treated the way people in other parts of the world are being treated.

Five of the countries that are signatories to NPT have nuclear weapons and they are the US, Russia, France, the UK and China.

In all, there are nine countries that have nuclear weapons considering that North Korea is one of them.

India, Pakistan and Israel are the countries with nuclear weapons that have not ratified the non-proliferation treaty.

North Korea is suspected to have developed nuclear weapons but the matter is being resolved through discussions and the countries involved are Japan and South Korea, aside from North Korea.

India, Pakistan and Israel attribute their inability to sign NPT to their security situations, he said. They should, however, ratify the treaty.

Countries signatory to the NPT have to have total disarmament but the process is proceeding at a frustratingly low pace.

Learning a lesson from North Korea, the situation in Iran should not be allowed to reach a point where it develops nuclear weapons. That is why the IAEA is insisting that Iran clarifies.

"We have been given a month's time by the Security Council to do our work, so my message to them is, let us wait," El Baradei said.

— the peninsula