Atomic bomb allegations "make us puke," Ahmadinejad says (Roundup)

Dec 22, 2009, 10:46 GMT

Tehran - Allegations that Iran is seeking to make atomic bombs 'make us ... just puke,' President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday.

'These constant allegations against Iran have become an unfunny joke and make us and our nation just puke,' Ahmadinejad said in a speech in Shiraz in southern Iran.

'If we wanted to make an atomic bomb, then we would have been courageous enough to say that we were doing it,' the president said in the speech, carried live by the news network Khabar.

He added that Iran was engaged only in a peaceful nuclear programme and would not allow any country, 'neither the United States nor the US servants,' to interfere in Iran's internal affairs and deprive it of its legitimate nuclear rights.

'If they come up with documents [regarding secret Iranian military programmes], we do not even look at them, and if they make deadlines [for making concessions in the nuclear dispute], then we in return will make deadlines for them to correct their policies,' the president said.

Ahmadinejad was mainly referring to documents disclosed last week by the Times newspaper claiming Tehran was working on a four-year plan to make a nuclear bomb.

The president and the Foreign Ministry had rejected the report, saying the documents were fabricated.

Ahmadinejad also rejected what he termed interpretations in the West that the Iranian government has become weak following June's disputed presidential election which was overshadowed by fraud charges and caused a massive protests in the country.

'The West should know that the Iranian government is now 10 times stronger than last year,' he said.

Ahmadinejad reiterated that 'Iran would not welcome another dispute or confrontation' but still welcomed negotiations with world powers based on 'logic and justice.'

'But when we say something, then we mean it and will go until the end,' he said, referring to his uncompromising stance in the nuclear dispute and the continuation of Iran's nuclear projects.

Ahmadinejad has ordered the construction of 10 more uranium enrichment sites and use of a new generation of more advanced centrifuges for accelerating the uranium enrichment process.

Ahmadinejad's deputy Ali Akbar Salehi said last week that a new generation of centrifuges would be ready by March 2011.

Salehi, who is also head of Iran's Atomic Organization, further claimed that 6,000 centrifuges - believed to be mainly the older models - were now operating at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.

Iran insists it has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear development as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and rejects Western charges that it has been working on a secret nuclear programme to make an atomic bomb.

However, its lack of transparency regarding its nuclear programme and refusal to suspend uranium enrichment have led to several United Nations Security Council sanctions resolutions against the Islamic state.