TEHRAN - Iran is determined to press ahead with its nuclear program even if it results in a halt of U.N. checks of the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites, President Mohammad Khatami said yesterday.
Khatami said Iran had no intention of pursuing nuclear weapons and was ready to expand the level of its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
"We are determined to obtain peaceful atomic technology even if it causes the stop of international supervision," Khatami said in a ceremony broadcast live on state television.
"We have never wanted nuclear weapons. We want peaceful technology," he said.
The IAEA governing board adopted a resolution on Saturday calling on Tehran to freeze its uranium enrichment activities, a process that can be used to build a nuclear bomb.
Iran on Sunday rejected the resolution and threatened to pull out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether if its case was sent to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Khatami's comments highlight the fact that Iranian reformers are as committed as their hardline opponents to Iran's right to pursue its nuclear energy program.
The United States, the European Union and Russia also urged Iran this week to comply with the IAEA demand to halt all activities linked to uranium enrichment.
Washington accuses Iran of running a covert nuclear weapons program alongside its declared civilian atomic energy program. Iran says its ambitions are limited to the generation of electricity.
The IAEA, which has been probing Iran's nuclear program for two years, has found many previously concealed activities that could be used in a weapons program, but no "smoking gun" that would confirm U.S. suspicions.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
