Describing Iran as a real threat, United States President George W Bush has insisted that the Gulf nation was a part of the 'axis of evil.'
"I termed Iran a part of the axis of evil for a reason," Bush said in an interview to Fox News, adding, "Iran is a real threat."
Bush first clubbed Iran along with North Korea and Saddam Hussein's Iraq as an axis of evil in his State of the Union address to the Congress in 2002.
Washington has slammed Tehran for Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments that Israel had no right to exist and that it was a tumour in the Middle East. Ahmadinejad had also termed the Holocaust as a myth.
The Bush administration is also stepping up the heat on Tehran, accusing it of using a civilian nuclear programme to hide the urge to produce nuclear weapons.
"We continue to work on the diplomatic front," Bush replied when asked how he will deal with Iran.
"I am concerned about theocracy that has got little transparency, a country whose President has declared the destruction of Israel as part of their foreign policy, and a country that will not listen to the demands of the free world to get rid of its ambitions to have a nuclear weapon," Bush said on Wednesday.
Asked if he had a specific message for Iran, Bush said, "I would hope they had be wise enough to begin listening to the people and allow them to participate in their government."
