By RIA Novosti
Tehran : Western ‘pressure’ over the country’s nuclear program has failed to force Iran to back down, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told a rally on the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
“They [the West] thought that threats, pressure, psychological war and Security Council resolutions would make the Iranian people back down, but they were mistaken, as usual,” he said on Monday.
“Iran’s nuclear program is being implemented in line with international norms and laws,” he went on.
Ahmadinejad implored crowds at the rally in Teheran to voice their position on the nuclear issue, and the thousands present responded by chanting, “Nuclear power is our integral right!”
The five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany agreed at talks in Berlin on January 22 on a draft for a third sanctions resolution against Iran calling for travel bans and asset freezes.
Western countries suspect Iran of pursuing a secret nuclear weapons program, but Iran insists it needs atomic energy for civilian needs.
Ahmadinejad said late last year that Iran would gain “a greatness that is 100 times more precious than nuclear energy,” if it could withstand pressure from the West over its nuclear program.
“Confronting those who speak in the language of aggression… is more important than the possession of know-how in the nuclear sphere,” said Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on November 21 at a rally at Ardebil, a city in the north east of Iran.
Russia called on Iran on January 5 to freeze uranium enrichment until key issues in its nuclear program have been cleared up with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
In an interview posted on the Foreign Ministry’s official website, Sergei Kislyak said Iran should freeze enrichment activity until all of its nuclear program’s “complicated points have been worked out.”
On February 4, Iran successfully tested the Explorer-1 research rocket, purportedly capable of carrying a satellite into orbit. The U.S. and other nation saw a more sinister side to the rocket launch, however.
The White House subsequently issued a statement calling the Iranian launch an “unfortunate” development. Russia said it was concerned over Iran’s attempts to develop a long-range ballistic missile.
“Any progress in the development of this [long-range ballistic missile] weaponry, certainly worries us and others,” said Alexander Losyukov, a Russian deputy foreign minister.
Iran later said that the launch did not possess a military nature, and that it was designed to aid the Islamic Republic in gathering meteorological information.
Ahmadinejad also said his country plans to launch another two space rockets and orbit a satellite.
In October, U.S. President George Bush said a third world war could erupt if Iran obtained nuclear weapons.
The White House has however denied media reports about a possible attack on Iran and has stressed its adherence to a diplomatic settlement to the problem.
In early January patrol boats of the Iranian Islamic Revolution’s Guards Corps approached U.S. warships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran said the boats did so to request identification, but the Pentagon insisted that the Iranian speedboats had threatened to attack them.