http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080123/wl_nm/iran_nuclear_dc_21;_ylt=ArUIl.uAgX
WrMdY_YtgX21JSw60A
 

Iran vows to follow nuclear path despite sanctions 


By Zahra Hosseinian Wed Jan 23, 6:53 AM ET 

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranian leaders vowed on Wednesday to press on with
Tehran's disputed nuclear work regardless of any new U.N. sanctions, one day
after world powers agreed the outline of a new resolution. 

 
<http://us.bc.yahoo.com/b?P=ZHOt0tG_Rt1L5vRpR5dxzxHvS8f3PkeXd74ABLzW&T=1809m
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3d619213.12054947.12500278.1442997%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4919452> 

"The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will continue with it,"
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the students news
agency ISNA.

"Such illegal behavior (by Western powers) ... will not divert the Iranian
nation from its path."

The United States and other Western powers fear Iran's nuclear activities
are aimed at building nuclear weapons. Iran, the world's fourth-largest
crude oil exporter, says its nuclear program is intended to generate
electricity.

World powers agreed on Tuesday on the outline of a third sanctions
resolution against Iran, but diplomats said the draft did not contain the
punitive economic measures that Washington had been pushing for.

Ahmadinejad called on major powers to avoid repeating past "mistakes."

"We advise them not to repeat their previous mistakes ... They cannot make
up for the past with a new mistake," the official IRNA news agency quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying.

The West has faced a diplomatic showdown with Iran since 2002 and the U.N.
Security Council has already imposed two sets of sanctions, in December 2006
and March 2007.

Washington has spearheaded a drive for new sanctions and had been pushing
for a new resolution to impose a ban on business with leading Iranian state
banks.

But that drive appears to have failed. Russia and China, both commercial
partners of Iran, have hardened their opposition to tough sanctions since a
U.S. intelligence report last month said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons
program in 2003.

"NOT TOUGH"

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin on Tuesday
after a nearly two-hour meeting with his counterparts from Britain, China,
France, Russia and the United States, that the new draft of a sanctions
resolution would be presented to the U.N. Security Council in the coming
weeks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the new draft resolution was not
tough or punitive and "welcomes the progress made between Iran and the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ..."

"The measures in this draft do not have a tough sanctioning character,"
Lavrov said.

He said the new draft resolution would "call on countries to be alert in
their transport relations with Iran so that those relations are not used to
transport (potentially dangerous) materials."

His remarks suggested the United States failed to win agreement in Berlin on
punitive economic sanctions against Iran.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tehran had exceeded its international
obligations on its nuclear dossier.

"Iran has gone beyond its obligations," Saeed Jalili told a committee of the
European Parliament during a visit to Brussels. He was expected to meet
European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana in the Belgian capital
later on Wednesday. 

"Everyone acknowledges those activities are peaceful," Jalili, referring to
Iran's nuclear activities. He reiterated Tehran's belief that Iran had a
right to enrich uranium. 

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei won agreement from Iran this month to answer
remaining questions about its past covert nuclear work within four weeks. 

Western diplomats say expectations are low that leaders in Tehran will be
forthcoming, but Iran says it has accelerated its cooperation with the IAEA
since then. Ahmadinejad said Iran had "good" cooperation with the agency. 

"No one aside from the agency has the right to interfere in Iran's nuclear
issue. No one can threaten us or impose something on Iran," IRNA quoted
Ahmadinejad as saying. 

(Reporting by Zahra Hosseinian; Writing by Parisa Hafezi; Editing by Peter
Millership and Timothy Heritage)



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