TEHRAN - Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday urged Washington to
unblock Iranian assets, as US President Barack Obama warned of
"consequences" after Tehran's dismissal of a UN-brokered nuclear fuel
deal.
"If our nation sees they have changed their behaviour,
dropped their arrogant attitude ... and return Iranian nation's rights
and assets, the nation will accept that," the Iranian president said in a
televised speech in the northern city of Tabriz.
"But if they are
again after deception and plotting in the region, our nation's response
will be the same as it gave to these men's predecessors," he said in an
apparent warning to archfoe the United States.
On Wednesday, Iran
rejected plans for it to send more than 70 percent of its stocks of
low-enriched uranium (LEU) abroad under a deal brokered by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and aimed at defusing a
long-running standoff with the West over Tehran's controversial atomic
programme.
Obama has pursued a carrot-and-stick policy with
Tehran, offering diplomatic engagement and at the same time threatening
tougher sanctions if Iran does not come clean over its atomic programme.
The
United States froze Iranian government assets in 1979 when Islamist
militants stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held its staff hostage,
which led to the scrapping of diplomatic relations in 1980.
The
asset freeze, renewed every year, is a source of resentment in Iran.
Iran's
uranium enrichment work is at the centre of fears about its atomic
ambition as the process which makes nuclear fuel can also be used to
make atomic bombs.
Iran has refused to halt enrichment despite
three sets of UN sanctions and it drew outrage in the West by disclosing
in September a new enrichment plant, Fordo, which is being built inside
a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom.
Iran's IAEA envoy
Ali Asghar Soltanieh said UN experts will visit the Fordo plant on
Thursday for the second time in less than a month.
Iranian
officials say the construction of the plant is a message to the West
that Tehran will never give up its uranium enrichment work and that the
plant is a back-up facility in case the main enrichment plant at Natanz
is bombed.
Washington and Israel have never ruled out a military
strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, which they suspect are being
used to make weapons, a charge strongly denied by the Islamic republic.
Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Wednesday that Iran is however
ready for more talks with world powers on the issue and is prepared to
consider the idea of a simultaneous exchange of uranium for fuel for a
Tehran reactor.
The IAEA, however, has already said that idea is
unacceptable to the Western powers, which support the UN-brokered deal
because they believe it would leave Iran with not enough stocks of LEU
to be able to make a bomb.
Obama stepped up pressure on Iran after
the Islamic republic dismissed the fuel deal which emerged from talks
between Iran and Russia, China, the United States, Britain, France and
Germany.
He warned Washington has "begun discussions with its
international partners about the importance of having consequences."
"Our
expectations are that over the next several weeks we will be developing
a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our
seriousness to Iran."
World powers have warned Iran that it could
face tough new sanctions if it rejects the deal.
Under the
IAEA-brokered proposals, Iran would send out 1,200 kilograms (more than
2,640 pounds), which would then be further enriched by Russia and
converted into fuel by France before being supplied to a Tehran reactor.
"The
amount they mentioned for the swap is not acceptable ... and our
experts are still studying it," Mottaki said when he announced Iran's
rejection of the deal.
© 2009 AFP