The United States said on Tuesday that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon yet but it is trying to get one as it already has much of the equipment and materials necessary that could lead to the production of highly- enriched uranium, an ingredient for nuclear weapons.

"They (Iran) have a highly-trained capable cadre of scientists. They have much of the equipment necessary, and they have some of the materials necessary -- the raw materials that could lead to production of highly-enriched uranium, fissile material," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said at a briefing.

"If they had the capability today to build a nuclear weapon, they would have built one by now," McCormack said.

However, Iran has not yet meshed together all of those capabilities. "There is still certain techniques and pieces of know-how that we do not believe that they have simply by the fact that they don't have a nuclear weapon yet. They've been working on it for some time," McCormack said.

At a news conference on Monday, Robert Joseph, U.S. undersecretary of state for arms control, claimed that Iran used negotiations with the European Union to play for time and had achieved the capability to develop nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them.

Source: Xinhua