Iran is approaching the “peak” in its nuclear programme and will not yield to Western pressure to halt its activities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad was speaking in the south-western town of Bushehrnear the site of Iran’s planned first nuclear power plant, being built with Russian help, and predicted the country would have nuclear electricity by this time next year.
“If you (Western powers) imagine that the Iranian nation will back down you are making a mistake,” he said in a televised speech.
“On the nuclear path we are moving towards the peak,” he said without elaborating.
Defying international pressure, Iran has been working on producing its own nuclear fuel, technology the West fears will be used to make atomic bombs. Tehran says its work is peaceful and has refused to stop.
He was speaking two days after Iran received the eighth and final consignment of nuclear fuel from Russia for the Bushehr plant.
Tehran has said the plant will start in mid-2008, though past deadlines have slipped.
“Next year at this time … nuclear electricity should flow in Iran’s electricity network,” he told the crowd.
Russia delivered the first shipment of uranium fuel rods on Dec. 17 and urged Tehran to scrap its efforts to produce nuclear fuel.
Tehran says its work is peaceful and has refused to stop.
Iran, the world’s fourth-largest crude producer, says it wants to build a network of nuclear plants so it can preserve more of its oil and gas for export. It says it wants to make nuclear fuel itself to guarantee its supplies.
World powers last week agreed the outline of a third UN sanctions resolution against Iran which calls for mandatory travel bans and asset freezes for specific Iranian officials and vigilance on banks in the country.
Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday called US President George W Bush’s accusations against Iran in his State of the Union address as redundant and insignificant, state television here reported.
The TV quoted ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying the American leader’s annual speech offered “repeated and stereotype (statements) … which lacked any new point and issue.”
Bush had in the address Monday warned of Iranian threats against US troops in Iraq and also said that “a failed Iraq would embolden extremists, strengthen Iran and give terrorists a base from which to launch new attacks on our friends, our allies and our homeland.”
“America will confront those who threaten our troops, we will stand by our allies and we will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf,” Bush had said.
He also labelled Iran as a supporter of terrorism. “Iran is funding and training militia groups in Iraq, supporting Hizbullah in Lebanon, and backing Hamas’ efforts to undermine peace in the Holy Land,” Bush said.
The US president also reiterated America’s old stance over Iran’s nuclear and arms intentions, saying that Tehran is” developing ballistic missiles of increasing range and continues to develop its capability to enrich uranium, which could be used to create a nuclear weapon.”
In turn, Hosseini urged Bush to find new topics for the remainder of his presidential term.
“We advise the US president to put the real concerns of American people on his agenda: economic recession, violations of human values and the severe psychological crisis of its military people, dismayed over occupation of Iraq,” Hosseini said.
Meanwhile, a senior US official said late on Wednesday that a “US ambassador’s appearance on a panel with top Iranians in Davos, Switzerland last week was not authorised and did not signal a change in policy toward Iran.”
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack declined to overtly criticize Zalmay Khalilzad, the ambassador at the United Nations, for joining a panel at the World Economic Forum with Iranian Foreign Minister Manochehr Mottaki. But McCormack said his appearance there had not been authorized by the State Department and a similar arrangement would not be repeated unless Iran reverses course on its disputed nuclear program.
“Is there some new policy, … was permission asked for in advance? No, it’s not a new policy. There wasn’t any permission in advance,” he said.
It apears that Khalilzad stuck to the US policy line, he added. “I don’t think that he said anything different there than one might say from the podium or an interview with the media,” he said.
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