By Xinhua
Tehran : Iran on Tuesday kept defiant towards a possible new international sanction, saying it cannot stop Iran from developing its nuclear program, the official IRNA news agency reported.
“The Iranian nation is moving within the framework of its legitimate and legal rights in line with materialization of its objectives,” government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham told reporters at a weekly press conference when answering questions over the Berlin meeting by six world powers to discuss Iran’s nuclear issue.
“It will have no effect on behavior of the Iranian people … new sanction by the UN Security Council in Iran’s nuclear issue has no justification, we are doubtful that members of the UN Security Council would repeat such illogical behaviors which would damage the credibility and prestige of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA),” he added.
Foreign ministers from the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany are scheduled to meet in Berlin Tuesday to discuss a possible third UN sanction resolution against Tehran since it didn’t suspend the uranium enrichment activities as the previous resolutions requested.
Iran has strongly demanded its nuclear case to be returned back to the IAEA and said the UN Security Council had no justification to interfere since it had “cooperated with the IAEA well.”
After more than four years of investigation, the IAEA still cannot decide whether Tehran’s nuclear program was just for peaceful purposes or not.
The United States has accused Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, which Iran has denied. Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.
The UN Security Council has adopted two resolutions — one in December 2006 and the other in March of 2007 — to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities and to give up its nuclear program.