'They want to create a crisis'

2006-04-07 14:38

Tehran - Iran will defend its controversial nuclear programme to its "last drop of blood" and refuses to suspend uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, a senior cleric said on Friday.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, meanwhile, were due in Iran later the same day to visit the Islamic republic's uranium enrichment facility and other sites.

"We want our rights and nothing more, and we will resist until our last drop of blood," Hojatoleslam Ahmad Khatami said in a Friday prayer sermon broadcast on state radio.

"They want to create a crisis. The Security Council, which ought to be an instrument of justice, wants to create insecurity and injustice," the ultra-conservative cleric charged.

"They have set a one-month deadline for us to suspend our research on enrichment. They can set a one-month delay, one for a year or whatever they want. We will not renounce our rights."

A non-binding statement approved unanimously by the world body on March 29 gave the Islamic republic 30 days to abandon the sensitive nuclear work, but without issuing a threat of sanctions.

Iran has refused to freeze its nuclear research and development - which includes uranium enrichment - that it resumed in January, insisting on nuclear technology for peaceful purposes as its right.

Tehran vehemently denies it has ambitions of building a nuclear bomb and says its nuclear energy programme is purely peaceful.

Meanwhile, Khatami said the past week of Iranian military manoeuvres in the strategic Gulf, in which missiles were tested, aimed to show that "if the enemies try to attack Islamic Iran, they will receive a severe smacking."

The IAEA visit starting on Friday was planned months ago and is not linked to the Security Council statement of late March, Aliasghar Soltanieh, Iran's representative to the IAEA said, quoted by the semi-official news agency Mehr.

"The inspections to be carried out in the coming days are routine inspections within the framework of the (nuclear) Non-Proliferation Treaty and not linked to the statement," he said.

IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei said on Thursday he hoped for "co-operation and transparency" from Tehran over its nuclear power standoff.

"There are still outstanding issues in Iran that we need to clarify," he told a Madrid news conference.

"I hope we will get the maximum co-operation and transparency from Iran that will enable us to provide a positive report, but I can only tell you that when our inspectors come back," he said.

"We have seen issues in Iran that we need to understand before we can say that we are satisfied that all activities in Iran are exclusively for peaceful purposes," he added.

- AFP