TEHRAN • President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran would not stop its nuclear programme while the United States was developing new atomic bombs every year, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

The Islamic republic says it wants nuclear technology only to cope with booming electricity demand. The EU and the United States suspect it of secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.

“How can the Iranian nation give up its obvious right to peaceful nuclear technology, when America and some other countries test new atomic bombs each year?” Ahmadinejad asked in a speech to a rally in the northwestern city of Namin.

His comments came days ahead of an August 22 deadline Iran set itself to respond to a demand by six world powers that Tehran scraps its enrichment program in return for economic and other incentives. Iran has so far shown no signs it will accept.

“Those states responsible for the atomic bombing of (Japan’s) Nagasaki and Hiroshima are now trying to deprive the Iranian nation of its right,” the official Irna news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. “Those states should be disarmed.”

Tehran has vowed to expand its atomic fuel activities despite a UN Security Council resolution on July 31 demanding it halt nuclear work by August 31 or face the threat of sanctions.

Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, will report to the Council on August 31 to certify whether Iran has stopped atomic fuel activity or not.

“The Iranian nation is determined to exercise its inalienable right (to nuclear technology),” Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying by the semi-official Fars news agency.

“Such demands and resolutions cannot harm the unity of the (Iranian) people.”

Envoy reaffirms Tehran’s stance

PARIS • Iran’s ambassador to Paris reaffirmed yesterday that international calls for his country to halt uranium enrichment were “not acceptable”, after Tehran said it would be prepared to discuss a freeze.

“The suspension demand is one that has absolutely no legal basis. It is a political demand that is not acceptable by our public opinion or by parliament,” Iran envoy Ali Ahani told French radio RMC.

“We do not believe in nuclear weapons at all because we do not think they can guarantee our security, but we insist on the use of these technologies for peaceful ends,” he said.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that Tehran was ready to “discuss” a uranium enrichment freeze, barely two weeks before a UN Security Council deadline to halt the nuclear work or risk sanctions.