Ahmadinejad scorns nuclear pressure

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TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday mocked international calls for Iran to rein in its nuclear program after U.S. President George W. Bush said the world must prevent it from making an atom bomb.

Iran denies seeking the bomb, but faces the prospect of being taken to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

The council's five permanent members, including a reluctant Russia and China, this week agreed to ask the U.N. nuclear watchdog to report Iran to New York immediately.

Ahmadinejad responded with defiance as he addressed a crowd of thousands in the Gulf port city of Bushehr, where Russia is helping Iran build its first nuclear reactor.

"I am telling those fake superpowers that the Iranian nation became independent 27 years ago and ... on the nuclear case, it will resist until fully achieving its rights," he said.

The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will decide at an emergency meeting in Vienna on Thursday whether to report Iran to the Security Council.

Iran says its nuclear plants will be used only to generate electricity for civilian use, not to make bombs.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met his Iranian counterpart Manouchehr Mottaki and told him to uphold voluntary nuclear safeguards and desist from issuing threats.

"Mottaki was warned not to walk away from the IAEA additional protocol or to make threats," a British Foreign Office spokesman said. "This was not in Iran's interest."
Straw had "made clear that Iran had an opportunity which it should take."

However, Iran's parliament reminded the government that under a law approved last year it must resume uranium enrichment and halt voluntary compliance with the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if sent to the council. Continued ...

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