February 21, 2008	Thursday	Safar 13, 1429

TEHRAN, Feb 20: The Iranian president said on Wednesday Iran’s determination to continue its disputed nuclear programme had brought major powers “to their knees”.

In another defiant speech ahead of an International Atomic Energy Agency report on Iran due on Friday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran would ignore calls by major powers to halt sensitive nuclear work that has led to two rounds of UN sanctions.

“The Iranian nation will not allow any power to trample even on its smallest (national) right,” he said in a televised address to a rally in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas.

As well as worrying the West, Ahmadinejad’s uncompromising speeches have stoked concerns among moderate politicians in Iran ahead of a March parliamentary election. Critics say he is pushing Iran into international isolation.

Former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, who is running for a parliament seat, said in remarks published on Wednesday he had quit the post of negotiator over “differences on management mechanism” with Ahmadinejad. He did not elaborate.

The UN nuclear watchdog report was expected to be out on Friday. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has cited “good progress” in resolving outstanding issues although diplomats said the inquiry looked unlikely to be completed by Friday.

UN Security Council members will scrutinise the details in his report before finalising a draft for a third and broader round of sanctions, which is now being considered.

“The Iranian nation’s will to continue nuclear work has won over the will of big powers ... (and) brought them to their knees,” said Ahmadinejad, to chants from the crowd of “Death to America” and “Nuclear energy is our obvious right”.

ANSWERING QUESTIONS: Under Iran’s system of clerical rule, the final word in nuclear policy lies with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

He has also said Iran will not stop efforts to develop nuclear energy. Western powers suspect Iran is really after atom bombs.

Tehran insists its work is entirely peaceful and only aimed at mastering technology to be used to generate electricity.

“Today the (IAEA), which is legally in charge of this case, has prepared a report and announced that Iran’s activities are legal and there is no diversion,” Ahmadinejad said.

“Big powers should respect the agency and its findings.”

The IAEA, seeking answers to longstanding questions about Iran’s programme, has clarified a series of issues under a transparency deal reached with Larijani last August.

Larijani told the Financial Times that Iran had responded to the IAEA to show the country’s nuclear plans were peaceful. “We have finished answering all their ... questions,” he said.

But a senior diplomat close to the IAEA said the last and toughest issue remained under discussion — alleged links under military supervision between uranium processing, high explosives tests and design work on missile warheads.

Diplomats accredited to the IAEA said they did not expect this file, also known as “weaponisation” of nuclear materials, to be resolved by the time of the IAEA report, despite a January IAEA-Iran deal to wrap up the inquiry by mid-February.

The IAEA received US intelligence on “weaponisation” in 2005. Last month, Washington, after long hesitation for fear of exposing sources, authorised the IAEA to share some of the data with Iran in hopes of extracting an Iranian “confession”, Vienna diplomats said. Tehran has long denied such accusations.—Reuters

ATTACK ON ISRAEL: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a “dirty microbe” and “savage animal”, as Iran stepped up its rhetoric against the Jewish state after the murder of a top Hezbollah commander.

“World powers have created a black and dirty microbe named the Zionist regime and have unleashed it like a savage animal on the nations of the region,” Ahmadinejad told a rally in the southern city of Bandar Abbas broadcast on state television.The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari, on Monday had predicted Lebanese militant group Hezbollah would destroy Israel in the near future.

Ahmadinenjad’s latest tirade came a week after the murder in a car bombing in Damascus of Imad Mughnieh, a top Hezbollah commander hailed by Iran as a great martyr who was killed by Israel.

Israel has denied any involvement in his murder although it welcomed the death of Mughnieh, who was on America’s most wanted list for a string of anti-Israeli and anti-Western attacks.

The head of US intelligence Mike McConnell has suggested that elements within Hezbollah and Syria could have been responsible.

“They (Israel) assassinate pure and pious people and then they celebrate it, like what happened to the son of Lebanon who had stood against the savage onslaught of the Zionists and broke the Zionists’ horns,” said Ahmadinejad.

He also accused world powers of establishing Israel to create a “scarecrow” to frighten and dominate other nations in the region.

The Iranian president has provoked international outrage by repeatedly predicting that Israel is doomed to disappear. He also courted more controversy by playing down the scale of the Holocaust.—AFP