Ahmadinejad quiet on new nuclear development

Ahmadinejad quiet on new nuclear development

Observers believe that the Iranian leadership chose to wait for the results of talks between Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and Western officials at an international security conference in Munich.

Larijani was to meet Sunday in Munich with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana in what is widely regarded as Tehran's last international effort to escape from United Nations Security Council sanctions.

Resolution 1737 passed by the Security Council obliged Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment programme by February 21 or face sanctions.

In his speech in front of a huge crowd at Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran, Ahmadinejad once again elaborated the nuclear issue from legal, technical and political standpoints but failed to give any new details.

The conservative president reiterated that the Iranian nation would not be intimidated by UN sanctions or military threats by the United States. He said Iran would stand behind its rights 'like a rock.'

Ahmadinejad was expected to announce at least the start of two new cascades each of 164 centrifuges which are reportedly running beside the two other cascades in the Natanz plant in central Iran, however without UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) gas being fed into the machines.

The president once again referred to what he called Western conspiracies and efforts to deprive Iran of technological progress and development.

Referring to his promised 'nuclear feast' on revolution anniversary day, Ahmadinejad just said that the presence of people in the annual demonstrations was 'itself a feast' as this reflected the national will and resistance in the nuclear dispute.

According to state media, hundreds of thousands of people came onto the streets of the capital and even more in the provinces to show their solidarity with the government.

The demonstrators showed their support for the country's nuclear programmes and voiced their protest against Resolution 1737.

Ahmadinejad said further that he had so far resisted implementing a parliamentary bill from December 2006 which had called on the government to revise its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He said he was even ready to hold nuclear negotiations, but without preconditions on enrichment suspension.

Meanwhile, with only 10 days before the UN deadline, the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization allowed all IAEA monitoring cameras to be installed at its atomic site in Natanz.

IAEA inspectors are also soon due to be taken to Natanz to report on the latest developments to the UN nuclear watchdog's headquarters in Vienna.