Iran was ready to work on a nuclear weapon during the war against Iraq in the 1980s, but it was not necessary, Iranian ex-President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said.
"When we first began our nuclear program, we were at war with Iraq and we sought to have that possibility for the day that the enemy might use a nuclear weapon. That was the thinking. But it never became a reality," TASS cited Rafsanjani as saying.
"Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application, but it never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was imperative, we should be able to go down the other path," he added.
