Ahmadinejad: Iran never after producing WMDs

TEHERAN - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that Iran has never been after producing or using weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), the official IRNA news agency reported.

In a message to a ceremony held in Iran's western city of Boroujerd "to commemorate 8,000 martyears of chemical attacks" by the Iraqis during Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988), Ahmadinejad said that based on the teachings of Islam and the religious orders of the Iranian Supreme Leader, production and use of such weapons are forbidden, said the report.

Iran believes that annihilation of all WMDs is a sacred goal which will guarantee security and safety of the human kind, hence all world states should cooperate to attain this objective, he was quoted as saying.

The Islamic republic has always insisted on a world clear of any kind of weapons of mass destruction, the Iranian president added.

The Iran-Iraq War, was an armed conflict between the armed forces of Iraq and Iran, lasting from September 1980 to August 1988.

The war came at a great cost in lives and economic damage of both countries. Half a million Iraqi and Iranian soldiers as well as civilians are believed to have died in the war with many more injured and affected.