By DPA
Tehran : Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted Monday that there was internal opposition to the country’s nuclear programmes.
“On the nuclear issue the foreign enemies are very determined to blocking our progress but we also face internal hurdles,” he said in a speech at Elm-Sanaat University in Tehran.
Ahmadinejad had several times stressed earlier that the nuclear issue was a national matter and supported by all factions regardless of their political standpoint.
“We have so far shown consideration for them due to some sensitivities but these are traitors and we will not just sit and watch – as soon as the nuclear issue is finished, we will reveal everything,” Ahmadinejad added without giving any details who or which political wing he was referring to.
This was the harshest rhetoric so far used by Ahmadinejad against his opponents.
The political opposition to Ahmadinejad’s government is led by the two ex-presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, whose factions have agreed to form a coalition for running in the parliamentary elections scheduled for March next year.
“They have had meetings with foreigners every week and regularly transferred classified information abroad and even told the enemies why they should postpone the (United Nations Security Council) resolutions (against Iran),” the president said.
He gave no name but he was referring to former nuclear negotiator Hossein Moussavian, who was arrested last May on charges of “connections to foreign elements and transfer of information to them”.
Moussavian, who was member of both Khatami’s and Rafsanjani’s administration and also served as ambassador to Germany in the 1990s, was released from prison on bail after a few days.
Iran might face a third UN resolution, including harsher financial sanctions, if the report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) should indicate existence of still ambiguous aspects over the Islamic state’s nuclear projects.
The report by the United Nations nuclear watchdog is to be presented to the IAEA board of governors in Vienna next week.