Egypt president's top aide defends Iran's nuclear program

"I believe economic sanctions are bad. Iranian people will suffer. And if the Iranian people suffer, they tend to be nihilistic and rejectionist," Osama el-Baz said in an interview with Kyodo News in Tokyo.

"They will believe the world is targeting them. So the best way is not to introduce sanctions at this point until you are sure" about the nature of the Iranian nuclear program, he said.

At the same time, Baz, who has been the president's right-hand man since the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel, stressed the importance of ensuring that no country develops a nuclear program for military purposes.

As he sees it, however, Iran's nuclear ambitions extend to producing electricity and lessening the country's reliance on oil.

Baz, who arrived in Japan on Thursday for a four-day visit to take part in a Japan-Arab forum, said he believes Iran is committed to "the innocent use of nuclear energy."

"I believe they have a right and they have a point here, but their rhetoric is too much," he said, suggesting that Iran's explanations to the international community about its nuclear energy program have lacked persuasiveness.

"It (the rhetoric) can be changed. But suppose Iran produces a nuclear device -- who are they going to use it against?"

Baz called on the international community to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through ongoing diplomatic efforts, instead of further pressuring the country into a corner.

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