TEHRAN - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted yesterday that Iran is nearing the "peak" of its efforts to unlock the secrets of the atom and again ruled out suspending the nuclear program.
But another Iranian official indicated that Russia continues to withhold key equipment to start up an almost-complete nuclear power plant near Bushehr, evidence that Moscow retains important leverage over Tehran.
In defiance of the United Nations Security Council, Iran continues efforts to enrich uranium gas, a process that could be used to make fuel for a nuclear power plant or, if highly enriched, for an atomic weapon.
Ahmadinejad's speech in Bushehr broke no new ground. It came on a campaign-like two-day visit to the port city six weeks before parliamentary elections.
Iran watchers say the president reaps political benefits from being scorned by the West for his defiant remarks.
"Now you see our scientists have managed to enrich and make a complete fuel cycle and Iran is one of world's nuclear countries," Ahmadinejad told a crowd. "The Iranian nation will resist the pressure and not withdraw one iota from its rights."
The United States, Britain, Russia, China, and France are the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council. They, along with Germany, have prepared a third set of sanctions to impose on Iran if it refuses to halt its enrichment program, which many suspect masks a drive to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran insists it wants nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes and says recent reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the US intelligence community show it has no ambitions to develop such weapons. Ahmadinejad repeated Iran's offer to partner with the West in the creation of an enriched uranium consortium, but as a producer. The Bush administration demands that Iran cease its enrichment activities before the United States will enter any such negotiations.
Along with enrichment, Iran has been busy expanding other nuclear facilities. Russians delivered the last of 82 tons of nuclear fuel rods this week for the light-water reactor they are building near Bushehr.
But Ahmad Fayyaz-Bakhsh, deputy chief of Iran's nuclear energy association, told reporters yesterday that the Russians had yet to deliver "precision instruments which should be provided . . . as a final touch."
He said Russia had promised to deliver the equipment, presumably for use in the plant's control room, by last October.
