March 16, 2007	Friday	Safar 26, 1428

TEHRAN, March 15: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday slammed the UN Security Council as lacking any legitimacy as the world body prepared a second package of sanctions over Iran's disputed nuclear programme.

“Today the enemies of the Iranian people are seeking to use the Security Council to prevent the progress and development of Iran. But the Security Council has no legitimacy among the peoples of the world,” said Ahmadinejad.

“They think that they are the representatives of the international community but the Iranian people do not lend any value to their decisions,” the IRNA news agency quoted him as saying in a speech in the central Yazd province.

His withering attack on the UN's most powerful body indicate Tehran has no intention of fulfilling Western hopes that a new package of sanctions could nudge the Islamic republic into suspending sensitive nuclear activities.

Envoys from world powers said on Wednesday they hope to present the Security Council with a package of new UN sanctions against Iran on Thursday amid expectations that a vote would take place next week.

US acting UN ambassador Alejandro Wolff told reporters that there was an “agreement in principle” among ambassadors of six major powers on the broad outline of the new sanctions on the basis of changes introduced on Wednesday.

“We expect tomorrow to be in a position to introduce a text into the council,” Britain's UN Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry added after envoys of the Council's five permanent members briefed their 10 non-permanent colleagues.

Iran has repeatedly vowed it will never surrender to the West's key demand that it suspend uranium enrichment activities, a process that can be used both to make nuclear fuel and the explosive core of an atomic bomb.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking a nuclear weapon but Tehran insists the atomic drive is solely aimed at generating energy.

Ahmadinejad's defiance was echoed -- albeit in a more measured way -- by the foreign policy adviser of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who said Iran would continue its nuclear drive and played down the effect of more sanctions.

“A new resolution will probably be adopted with more extensive sanctions,” said Ali Akbar Velayati, a highly influential former foreign minister.

“The resolution would above all have a political and psychological effect.”—AFP