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Ahmadinejad slams leaders for demanding access to new site
Tehran (AFP) Sept 30, 2009 President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at world leaders on Wednesday for demanding access to a new nuclear plant and said Tehran will not be "harmed", whatever happens in talks with the major powers. "The leaders of these countries made a historic mistake with their comments about the new plant," state television website quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. "After this they also said Iran must give access to the facility as quickly as possible," the hardline president said. "Who are you to tell the agency (International Atomic Energy Agency) and Iran what to do?" he added, referring to the UN nuclear watchdog. The IAEA said last week that Iran had informed it on September 21 that it was building the new uranium enrichment plant near the central holy city of Qom. The news sparked an international outcry and Washington called on Tehran to agree to "immediate, unfettered access" by IAEA inspectors to the site which is being built adjacent to a military base, on a highway south of Tehran. On Tuesday, atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran was ready to discuss world concerns about the plant and would submit a timetable for inspections to the UN watchdog "very soon." But IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said on Wednesday that Iran had been on the "wrong side of the law" by not informing the agency earlier that it was building the plant. "Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that," ElBaradei said in an interview with India's CNN-IBN television channel. Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili is to hold talks in Geneva on Thursday with representatives of the six powers -- Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that the United States would bring up its concerns about uranium enrichment, even if Tehran refuses to discuss the issue. Uranium enrichment is the sensitive process that lies at the centre of Western concerns over Iran's real amibitions. The process can produce the fuel for nuclear power or, in highly extended form, the fissile core of an atomic bomb. The UN Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions against Iran over its failure to heed repeated ultimatums to suspend enrichment. Ahmadinejad said the Geneva talks gave an "exceptional opportunity for US and a few European countries to correct the way they interact with other world nations." But he said Iran would not be "harmed" by the talks, whatever their outcome. "The negotiators can definitely adopt any policy that they want, but we will not be harmed," the Fars new agency quoted the president as saying. "Iran has prepared itself for any condition and our nation has learnt over the past 30 years to stand on its feet and change any circumstance to its benefit." As he left Tehran for Geneva on Wednesday, Iran's chief negotiator Jalili said he was adopting a "positive approach" towards the talks. "We are going to Europe for this negotiation with a positive approach and I hope this is an opportunity for others also," Jalili told reporters at the airport. Ahmadinejad's media advisor, Ali Akbar Javanfekr, warned that Iran would not allow "power and force to rule the negotiation". "We remind the Western parties in the Geneva talks of the necessity of using the culture of negotiation and avoiding immoral concepts of stick and carrot," Javanfekr said in a statement to AFP. Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki meanwhile told UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York that Iran would not give up its "right" to nuclear technology. "Iran, in defending its absolute right to develop civilian nuclear technology, will never bow under political pressure," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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Iran promises UN inspections 'soon' but no enrichment freezeTehran (AFP) Sept 29, 2009 Iran said on Tuesday that it will offer a timetable soon for UN inspection of its controversial new uranium enrichment plant but again rejected demands for a freeze on the sensitive process. Atomic energy chief Ali Akbar Salehi said Iran is ready to discuss world concerns about its previously undisclosed second enrichment plant, but insisted there can be no bargaining about Iran's right to m ... read more |
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