Indians split on Iran programme

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Indians are divided on whether punitive action should be taken against Iran if it pursues a nuclear arms programme, according to a BBC World Service Poll.

But only 18% of those polled believed Iranian assurances that research it is carrying out is just for energy needs.

The most popular responses were diplomacy and economic sanctions, with 23% and 20% support respectively.

Last month Iran failed to abide by a UN deadline to halt uranium enrichment which could lead to sanctions.

The survey asked 27,407 people in countries ranging from the US and UK to Brazil, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Israel, Nigeria, Poland, Russia and Turkey.

The survey, by the international polling organisation GlobeScan, has a margin of error of between plus-or-minus 2.5% and 4%.

<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/21_09_06_iran_poll.pdf" class="">Survey findings in full (1.2 MB)</a> Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader. <a href="http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html">Download the reader here</a>

Of the Indians polled 15% favoured a military strike, and 14% did not favour any pressure on Iran.

Indians were nearly evenly split on the question of the right of the countries to develop nuclear fuel - 29% of those polled said UN should stop countries developing capacity to produce the fuel, while 25% favoured the countries to be free to produce fuel under UN oversight.

The survey asked 1639 people in India in June.

The poll found that world opinion opposes aggressive steps as a way of stopping a possible Iranian nuclear arms programme.

But only 17% of those polled believed Iranian assurances that research it is carrying out is just for energy needs.

Overall the most popular course of action, with 39% support, was to use only diplomatic efforts; 11% favoured military strikes.

Poll analyst Steven Kull, of the University of Maryland, said: "Clearly world opinion rejects Iran's claim that it is simply trying to develop nuclear energy.

"But at this point the world public favours addressing the problem through diplomacy rather than a confrontational approach."<hr>