Iran's president spurns critics, UN on nuclear work
TEHRAN -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed back over the US military buildup in the Gulf, saying yesterday that Iran is ready for any possibility in the standoff over its nuclear program.
The president made clear he was not backing down in his tough rhetoric toward the United States, despite criticism at home. Conservatives and reformists alike have openly challenged Ahmadinejad's nuclear diplomacy tactics, many saying his fiery anti-Western remarks are doing more harm than good.
Ahmadinejad said their calls for compromise echo "the words of the enemy."
The United States sent an aircraft carrier to the Gulf this week, the second to deploy in the region. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the buildup was intended to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made America vulnerable.
In an apparent reaction to the deployment, Ahmadinejad vowed yesterday that Iran would not back down over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is being developed only to produce energy.
"Today, with the grace of God, we have gone through the arduous passes and we are ready for anything in this path," state-run television quoted the Iranian leader as saying.
The United Nations Security Council recently imposed limited sanctions to punish Iran for defying a resolution demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce material to fuel nuclear reactors or, at purer concentrations, the core of nuclear weapons.
In Paris, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said the pressure from the sanctions has failed to break a consensus in Iran that the oil-rich nation needs to master the complex process of uranium enrichment. Iran this week said it is moving toward large-scale enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material.
A diplomat and a UN official in Vienna said yesterday that much, but not all, of the hardware needed for the installation of the centrifuges was now in place at a plant in Natanz. 