Iran thumbs its nose at UN

Tehran: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad fired off a fresh barrage of warnings to the United Nations yesterday, saying Iran did "not give a damn" about demands to freeze sensitive nuclear work.

The firebrand president also told supporters the Islamic republic could soon become a "superpower", and issued a veiled threat to cut off ties with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

His comments coincided with an IAEA report saying Iran had failed to respect a Security Council deadline to freeze uranium enrichment and that its hardline leadership had failed to cooperate with the agency.

"Iran does not give a damn about such resolutions," the president told a rally in the northern province of Zanjan.

"The Islamic republic of Iran has the capacity to quickly become a world superpower," Ahmadinejad said. "If we believe in ourselves... no other power can be compared to us".

At the weekly Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University, influential former president Ali Akbar Rafsanjani a rival of Ahmadinejad also warned Western powers but offered more conciliatory words.

President George W. Bush said yesterday "the world is united and concerned" about Iran's suspected desire to build nuclear weapons and that he will work with other countries to achieve a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Britain will ask the UN Security Council to increase the pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak said that Moscow would study "very carefully" a report by the UN nuclear agency that criticised Iran for enriching uranium

China's UN ambassador Wang Guangya said that almost all Security Council members wanted a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear crisis.

French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said France convinced that the crisis over Iran's nuclear programme must be solved diplomatically, despite new findings from the IAEA that Tehran has successfully enriched uranium.

An Iraqi vice-president warned the United States yesterday against attacking Iran.

Adel Abdul Mahdi, the Shiite member of the three-man Presidency Council, was reacting after he was asked about speculation that US forces might strike to prevent Iran developing nuclear technology.

"We will not allow anyone to attack anyone," he said after a meeting in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, Iraq's senior Shiite cleric.

Call for suspension of enrichment

Following are extracts from the eight-page report, sent from International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) headquarters in Vienna to the IAEA board of governors and to the Security Council:

The IAEA has called on Iran to:

• "re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;
• Implement transparency measures (that) include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations.
• The Security Council "called upon Iran to take the steps required by the (IAEA) Board of Governors, notably . . . to build confidence in the exclusively peaceful purpose of its nuclear programme and to resolve outstanding questions."
• "The Security Council requested in 30 days (from March 29) a report from the Director General on the process of Iranian compliance with the steps."
• "The Agency cannot exclude the possibility notwithstanding the explanations provided by Iran that the plutonium analysed was derived from source(s) other than the ones declared by Iran."