Mottaki says Iran will not forgo nuclear “rights”

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, May 16 – Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ambassadors of Russia and China in Tehran that the Islamic Republic would not forgo its nuclear “rights”, the government-owned news agency Mehr reported on Tuesday. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, May 16 – Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ambassadors of Russia and China in Tehran that the Islamic Republic would not forgo its nuclear “rights”, the government-owned news agency Mehr reported on Tuesday.

“We have decided not to forgo our nuclear rights which are derived from our membership in the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)”, Mottaki said.

He said that “pressures” imposed on Tehran and the decision by the United Nations Security Council to take up Iran’s nuclear dossier would eventually “weaken” the council as well as other international bodies.

He accused the United States of wanting the conflict to drag on and also said that Washington was opposed to the emergence of a new Russia and was attempting to drain Moscow’s energy resources.

Tehran is under pressure from the Security Council to abandon its uranium enrichment program which the West believes is for building a nuclear bomb.