TEHRAN, 16 October 2006 — President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pledged that Iran will make no concessions to Western-led pressure over its nuclear program, whatever sanctions are threatened by the international community.
“Pressure and threats against Iran’s nuclear program will not affect Iran in any way,” the student news agency ISNA quoted Ahmadinejad as telling an Iranian engineers’ association meeting Saturday evening.
“Iran and its people will not be scared off their wishes and will continue on their path with determination,” he said.
“The insistence by certain countries on a suspension (of uranium enrichment), even for a short period, is unlawful,” the president said, taking up Iran’s repeated insistence that it has a right to master the technology for peaceful ends under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Meanwhile, a heavyweight Iranian lawmaker warned yesterday Tehran would limit inspections by the UN of its nuclear sites if slapped with sanctions over its atomic program, the student ISNA agency reported.
“Taking such a step (UN sanctions) will undoubtedly limit the space for International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and they will be denied the current opportunities,” said Alaeddin Borujerdi, head of the parliamentary national security commission.
His comments come as the five UN Security Council permanent members plus Germany discuss imposing sanctions against Iran over its failure to halt enrichment, which the West fears could be diverted to making a nuclear bomb.
As a member of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran insists it has a right to enrichment, which it says will be used for peaceful energy ends.
Iran allows visits to nuclear facilities under the NPT but in February it stopped applying the additional protocol to the treaty, which allows extensive access to atomic sites, after the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on Iran to freeze enrichment.
The European Union is expected to announce in the coming week that it will leave it up to the UN Security Council to consider punitive action after four rounds of talks between the EU and Tehran failed to reach agreement.
