Iran rejects charge of military takeover

Iran regrets that Clinton is “seeking to divert public opinion in the region,’’ Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said yesterday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

“We see these methods as a new trick although its nature is clear to the people and authorities in the region and it will have no effect.’’

Clinton, speaking Monday in Doha, Qatar, said Iran’s supreme leader, government, president, and Parliament are “being supplanted’’ by the Revolutionary Guard Corps, the military unit that’s played a key role in suppressing antigovernment protests. She said the Guards are in control of Iran’s nuclear program and should be the target of sanctions.

In a discussion with students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, yesterday, Clinton said “evidence is building’’ that Iran wants nuclear technology to build weapons. Iran’s government says its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes.

President Obama is demanding tougher United Nations sanctions against Iran to persuade the regime to cease uranium enrichment, which the United States says is part of a plan to acquire nuclear weapons. Clinton is on a three-day tour of the Persian Gulf to seek support sanctions.

Iran’s clerical rulers have used the Revolutionary Guards to suppress protests against the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, which opposition leaders say was rigged.

Ahmadinejad has accused the United States and its allies of encouraging those protests. He said last week that Iran doesn’t trust the West enough to hand over its uranium for enrichment outside the country, as proposed by the United Nations Security Council and Germany in October.

In a joint statement yesterday, Russia, the United States, and France urged Iran to stop enriching uranium to higher levels and suggested the project reinforces suspicions that Tehran is seeking to make nuclear weapons. The statement, made public yesterday, reflects unified Russian and Western opposition to Iran’s increased enrichment.

Shrugging off international concerns, Ahmadinejad announced the country was moving ahead to expand its enrichment capacities by installing more advanced machinery at its main enrichment facility.

Ahmadinejad told reporters in Tehran yesterday that the new centrifuges are not yet operational but are five times more efficient than the model now in use at its underground Natanz enrichment plant.

Officials at the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency said they had no comment.

Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.