Ahmadinejad plans to attend Security Council meeting (Roundup)

Mar 11, 2007, 11:51 GMT

Tehran - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said he wishes to personally appear before the United Nations Security Council in New York in order to defend his country's nuclear rights, reports said Sunday.

Iranian news agency ISNA quoted government spokesman Gholam- Hossein Elham as saying that Ahmadinejad intends to attend a Security Council meeting to be held in order to discuss the international dispute over Iran's nuclear programme.

No details were given on when such a meeting could take place.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini confirmed in his weekly press briefing Sunday the president's plan to go to New York but refrained to say what exactly Ahmadinejad intended to tell the UN Security Council members.

Hosseini said that Iran's nuclear policy was clear and all the Islamic state wanted was to pursue nuclear technology within internationally acknowledged regulations and the framework of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

'Referring the case to the UN Security Council has definitely made the whole issue more complicated ... (resolution) could only be possible through negotiations without preconditions,' the spokesman said.

'The fact is however that we will not retreat from our position and will continue insisting on our nuclear right,' Hosseini said.

Iran is facing the possibility of further sanctions due to its continued refusal to halt uranium enrichment as called for by UN Security Council Resolution 1737.

International governments chief among them the United States accuse Tehran of nuclear weapons ambitions, however Iran insists on its right to peaceful nuclear technology under the terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.