Iran vows no weakness over nuclear program

updated 4:20 a.m. ET Feb. 23, 2007

TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Friday Iran should not show weakness over its nuclear program, a day after Tehran ignored a U.N. deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says could be used for making bombs.

"If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat," he said in a speech in northern Iran, Iran's ISNA news agency said.

In the past, he said, compromise over the program, which Tehran says is intended solely for peaceful power supplies, had led to increased demands from the West.

Ahmadinejad's statement came a day after the the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report that "Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities." The finding cleared the way for harsher sanctions against Tehran.

Although its information was based on material available to it as of Feb. 17, a senior U.N. official familiar with Iran’s nuclear file, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the issue, suggested the IAEA’s conclusion remained valid as of Thursday.

The IAEA detailed recent activities showing Tehran expanding its enrichment efforts — setting up hundreds of uranium-spinning centrifuges in an underground hall and bringing nearly 9 tons of the gaseous feedstock into the facility in preparation for enrichment. It added that Iranian officials had informed the agency that they would expand their centrifuge installations to have thousands of them ready by May.

The conclusion — while widely expected — was important because it could serve as the trigger for the council to start deliberating on new sanctions meant to punish Tehran for its intransigence over its nuclear program.

Heavy water reactor also a defiance
In the report, written by IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, the agency also said the Islamic republic continues building both a reactor that will use heavy water and a heavy water production plant — also in defiance of the Security Council.

Both enriched uranium and plutonium produced by heavy water reactors can produce the fissile material used in nuclear warheads. Iran denies such intentions, saying it needs the heavy water reactor to produce radioactive isotopes for medical and other peaceful purposes and enrichment to generate energy.

The report also said agency experts remain “unable ... to make further progress in its efforts to verify fully the past development of Iran’s nuclear program” due to lack of Iranian cooperation.

That, too, put it in violation of the Security Council, which on Dec. 23 told Tehran to “provide such access and cooperation as the agency requests to be able to verify ... all outstanding issues” within 60 days.

The report — sent both to the Security Council and the agency’s 35 board member nations — set the stage for a fresh showdown between Iran and Western powers.

Tehran stays its course
In Tehran, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammed Saeedi, said: “Iran considers the (IAEA demand for) suspension as against its rights, the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and international regulations.”

“That’s why Tehran could not have answered positively to the request by resolution 1737 of the UN Security Council for a suspension of enrichment activity,” Saeedi said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

State Department spokesman Tom Casey said that Iran’s refusal to curtail its nuclear program is a “missed opportunity” for its government and people. He said he is confident that the Security Council will approve additional sanctions against Iran but declined to predict what they might be.

Before the report was issued, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the U.S. and its allies would use the Security Council and other “available channels” to bring Tehran back to negotiations over its nuclear program.

U.N.'s Ban ‘deeply concerned’
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply concerned ... that the Iranian government did not meet the (Wednesday) deadline set by the Security Council.”

“I urge again that the Iranian government should fully comply with the Security Council” as soon as possible, he told reporters in Vienna, saying Iran’s nuclear activities had “great implications for peace and security, as well as nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.”

U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin of Russia said he had no comment on the report but reiterated Moscow’s desire for a negotiated solution. “We should not lose sight of the goal — and the goal is not to have a resolution or to impose sanctions,” he said. “The goal is to accomplish a political outcome.”

In addition to the sanctions, the U.S. government has been raising the pressure on Tehran on other fronts, from arresting Iranian officials in Iraq to persuading European governments and financial institutions to cut ties with the Islamic Republic.

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