TEHRAN, Nov. 9 (Xinhua) — Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic would not step back “an iota” from its nuclear path, following the release of a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the previous day saying that Iran has engaged in activities relevant to the development of nuclear weapons.
Addressing a crowd in the central city of Shahr-e-Kord, Ahmadinejad said that “They (Westerners and IAEA) accuse us of building a nuclear bomb.”
However, “we don’t need an atomic bomb,” the president stressed during his speech broadcasted live on the state TV.
Ahmadinejad said that the IAEA report is the U.S. claim, and the IAEA, by this report, disgraced itself.
“Iranian nation will not slacken and will not step back one iota from the way that has taken,” he added.
In the latest report on Iran’s nuclear program, the UN nuclear watchdog listed a series of “credible” evidence that Iran was carrying out projects and experiments suspected of linking with a nuclear warhead design at least until 2003. Some of these activities are possibly still in progress, said the report.
However, Teheran has rejected the report as “imbalanced, non- professional and politically-motivated.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said that there is no evidence of diversion in Iran’s nuclear program, the local satellite Press TV reported Wednesday. Salehi made the remarks in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Tuesday.
In the IAEA report, “there is no conclusive evidence that Iran wants to build a nuclear bomb,” he said, adding that the West is trying to put pressure on Iran without any legal proof.
Meanwhile, Iran’s permanent representative to the IAEA Ali- Asghar Soltanieh told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday that IAEA Director-General Yukiya Amano’s report on Iran’s nuclear activities was a “historical mistake.”
Soltanieh said that Iran will never give up its nuclear rights.
Despite Tehran’s repeated insistence on the “peaceful” nature of its nuclear program, western countries continue to raise concerns that it will use the uranium enrichment to make nuclear weapons.
