JAKARTA, 11 May 2006 — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused Western nations yesterday of hypocrisy and said their expressions of concern over nuclear programs were a “big lie.”

The Iranian leader was speaking on a visit to fellow Muslim nation Indonesia, which said Tehran had been receptive to its offer to help mediate the Islamic republic’s dispute with critics of its nuclear project.

“I’ll tell you, they are not concerned with nuclear programs ... They are themselves engaged in nuclear activities and they are expanding day by day. They test new brands of weapons of mass destruction every day,” Ahmadinejad told a news conference after meeting Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

“Big powers pretend (they) are concerned, but it’s a big lie,” the Iranian leader said.

Speaking of a letter sent to US President George W. Bush, which Washington shrugged off as an attempt to divert attention from the nuclear issue, Ahmadinejad said sending it was the right decision and that he had no comment on the US reaction.

President Bush received the 18-page letter from Ahmadinejad on Monday, the first publicly announced personal communication from an Iranian president to his US counterpart since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Meanwhile, the United States said yesterday it would wait “a couple of weeks” before pressing tough UN action against Iran while European negotiators draft new incentives for Tehran to renounce its controversial nuclear activities.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made the announcement after two days of intensive consultations by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany that ended with no consensus on stern UN measures.

“We agreed that we will continue to seek a (UN) Security Council resolution, but that we would wait for a couple of weeks while the Europeans design an offer to the Iranians that would make clear that they have a choice that would allow them to have a civil nuclear program,” Rice told ABC television.

Diplomats said negotiators from the council’s five permanent members plus Germany would meet in London on May 19 to consider new incentives as well as sanctions if Iran does not halt suspected efforts to build a nuclear bomb. A Western envoy in Vienna said they hoped to finalize the package within 10 days for presentation to Iran by Britain, France and Germany, the so-called EU-3 which have taken the lead in negotiations with Tehran.

But Rice said Washington was not abandoning efforts to seek a forceful response to Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, despite opposition from Russia and China to any punitive measures. “We are all in agreement that the Security Council has got to send a very strong message to Iran that it can’t continue to defy the international community. And that’s what we’re going to do,” Rice said.

“And we felt that waiting a couple of weeks is the way to allow diplomatic options to be fully pursued.” She told NBC television the EU-3 would present Tehran with two options. “Iran can either defy the international community and face isolation and UN Security Council action; or Iran can accept a path to a civil nuclear program that is acceptable to the international community,” she said.