US/IRAN: The US yesterday condemned Iran for persisting with what Washington says is an atomic bomb-making programme, but Tehran vowed to resist such international pressure.
"Iran needs to come clean and fully co-operate with its international obligations," White House spokesman Mr Scott McClellan told reporters travelling with US President George Bush to a NATO summit in Istanbul.
"Iran's continued failure to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency and continued failure to stop all enrichment-related reprocessing activities only reinforce the concern we have expressed," Mr McClellan said.
Iran said yesterday it would resist pressure to reverse its decision to produce parts for centrifuges that enrich uranium, reneging on a pledge to suspend all enrichment activities.
The Iranian foreign minister, Mr Kamal Kharrazi, said that "making centrifuges is different from enriching uranium". "It is Iran's natural right to resume assembling and making centrifuges," he said. Iran insists its ambitions are peaceful.
Iran's decision was a retaliation against a resolution last week by the IAEA, the UN nuclear watchdog, that "deplored" Iran's failure to co-operate fully with IAEA inspectors.
But Iran also pledged to continue to allow IAEA inspectors access to nuclear sites for short-notice inspections under the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which Tehran signed last year but has yet to ratify.
If enriched to a low level, uranium can be used as fuel for electricity-generating reactors. But if enriched further, to weapons-grade, it can be deployed in warheads. - (Reuters)