Moscow, April 2 (Reuters): Russia’s leading nuclear scientist said today that it was just a question of time before Iran developed a nuclear weapon and it should be stopped.

The Islamic republic, facing a showdown with the US over its nuclear ambitions, clearly has the knowhow to make atomic weapons, said Yevgeny Velikhov, a close associate of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “From a scientific point of view of course they could create nuclear weapons,” Velikhov, president of Russia’s Kurchatov Institute, said. “When they could do it is a more difficult question.”

“If you remember, US scientists expected the Soviet Union would only be able to create a nuclear bomb by around 1954 at the earliest,” he said. “They were rather surprised when we created one in 1949,” he said.