By DPA
Tehran : There is no way Iran would withdraw from its right to pursue nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday.
“Iran just wants to realize its rights in accordance with internationally acknowledged rules and regulations and as active member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Tehran University.
“As far as we are concerned, the nuclear dossier is closed and we are not willing to put our irrevocable (nuclear) right to discussion,” he added.
The European Union foreign ministers are to hold a meeting on Oct 15 to discuss a French initiative to take independent punitive measures against Iran outside the UN Security Council.
“The hue and cry by some Western countries is just a proof that we have made great (nuclear) achievements and the job (access to nuclear know-how) is accomplished,” Ahmadinejad said.
The president said Iran was willing to continue cooperation with the IAEA and reply to all questions and ambiguities by the nuclear watchdog.
“The IAEA makes questions, we answer them. Therefore there is no need to make a crisis out of the Iranian nuclear dossier – the West still believes it can intimidate us with psychological war and make us stop (our nuclear programmes) but they should revise their standpoints,” he said.
Ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani Friday also stressed Iran’s undeniable right to pursue nuclear technology.
Rafsanjani said that the West, and not Iran, made the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and all Tehran wanted was acting in accordance with the NPT whose signatories, including Iran, were entitled to have civil nuclear technology.
Iran and the IAEA agreed in August on a plan of action, which aims at removing all technical ambiguities over Iran’s nuclear projects by November or December this year.
The plan is also supposed to prepare ground for political talks between Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
Tehran considers the plan as the most suitable basis to settle the nuclear dispute by diplomatic means but is not ready to accept the Western precondition that Tehran suspend uranium enrichment before resuming talks.