Iran’s Rafsanjani vows resistance to EU, US nuclear pressure

AFP: Iran’s powerful former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, vowed the Islamic republic would resist international efforts to prevent it from mastering advanced nuclear technology.
“The Europeans and the Americans say with determination that Iran must not master nuclear technology and we respond with determination that we reply with determination that we will not renounce our legitimate right,” he was quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA. AFP

TEHRAN – Iran’s powerful former president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, vowed the Islamic republic would resist international efforts to prevent it from mastering advanced nuclear technology.

“The Europeans and the Americans say with determination that Iran must not master nuclear technology and we respond with determination that we reply with determination that we will not renounce our legitimate right,” he was quoted as saying by the student news agency ISNA.

He was criticising a draft resolution put before the International Atomic Energy Agency by the Europeans which calls on Iran to ease suspicions over it nuclear drive by November and suspend fuel cycle activities.

“The United States and Europe say the same things, and there will be alot of problems in the future,” he said.

The US is pushing the UN nuclear watchdog to adopt a resolution in Vienna this week that would set a deadline, possibly as early as October 31, for Tehran to fully suspend uranium enrichment and take other measures.

Tehran insists its programme is strictly for civilian purposes and within the confines of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

But Washington accuses it of failing to live up to a year-old agreement to suspend the building of centrifuges used for enriching uranium and of covering up a clandestine weapons programme.