U.S., Israeli military threats against Iran not based on intl. legal structures: Blix

TEHRAN,May 28(MNA) – The former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Hans Blix, said on Sunday that the threats issued against Iran by the United States and Israel over its nuclear program were not based on international legal structures, Guardian reported. Speaking at the Hay literary festival, the Swedish international lawyer who led the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the Iraq war, said, “The risk of large wars may have gone, but the risk of armed intervention remains. In most cases, say, North Korea, Syria… the cost of armed interventions in terms of lives and resources have limited temptations. “But it may be asked what weight does international legal rule have per se? We have to admit that in the current cases of Iran and Syria there is astonishing little attention paid to the legality of armed intervention.” Blix, who was delivering the 2013 Joseph Rotblat lecture to an audience of 1,600 festival goers, warned that current threats by the U.S. and Israel of armed action against Iran were not based on international legal structures. “We hear about possible unilateral armed action to eradicate what: intentions, that may or may not exist.” The West suspects Iran’s nuclear program may be aimed at developing nuclear weapons capability, but Iran insists it is entirely peaceful.