Ahmadinejad: Iran will press on with nuclear program
Published: Monday, August 11, 2008
16:25GMT—12:25PM/EST
IRAN – NUCLEAR – LARIJANI
Washington, 11 August (IranVNC)—Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today that his country would continue on its nuclear path, despite calls by Western powers for tighter sanctions against Tehran.
Speaking with visiting Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in Tehran today, Ahmadinejad said: “They’ve [major powers] deeply understood that Iran’s peaceful nuclear program will never be halted and of course they have no choice but to keep on talking to Iran.”
The United States and Britain warned last week that major powers had agreed to consider further United Nations sanctions against Iran after that country failed to provide a positive response to an incentives package the six powers had offered it in return for suspension of uranium enrichment.
The European Union announced on Friday that it will implement new sanctions against Tehran that would go beyond the latest UN Security Council resolution on Iran. The U.S., UK, France and Germany are reported to be mulling a similar move, as China and Russia have softened previous UN resolutions against the Islamic Republic.
But Ahmadinejad dismissed the threats, saying Iran would continue its program, which it says is aimed only at peaceful purposes. Western powers fear Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons.
“Despite threats and sanctions by a number of big powers, our nation is vivaciously continuing living its own life as they cannot put obstacles in the path of our progress in building our country,” the state-run IRIB News website reports.
The speaker of Iran’s Majlis [parliament], Ali Larijani, told a meeting of Iran’s foreign envoys today that Western powers opposed Iran’s nuclear program because “Iran plays a very significant role in regional developments,” the official IRNA news agency reports.
During his meeting with Larijani, the Algerian president expressed support for Iran’s “peaceful nuclear program” and said he hopes current negotiations will produce a “diplomatic solution”, IRNA says.
Sources: IRIB News website, IRNA
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