Tehran – Iran’s hard-line president scolded Europeans on Sunday, accusing them of being willing to sell their goods to Iranians while at the same time trying to strangle Tehran’s nuclear program.
Some legislators, meanwhile, criticized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Cabinet nominees, with one lawmaker asserting that the new president’s proposed government had autocratic leanings.
In a speech to parliament, Ahmadinejad did not name any European country but was clearly alluding to Britain, France and Germany – Iran’s largest European trading partners. They referred Iran to the U.N. nuclear watchdog this month after Tehran announced it was resuming uranium processing.
The trio had been negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union and the United States in an effort to persuade Tehran to shutter its program for uranium conversion. That is a precursor step to enrichment, which produces material suitable for both reactor fuel and weapons use.
The United States and others suspect Iran is trying to build nuclear arms in violation of its commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Iran denies that, saying its nuclear program is intended only to generate electricity. But some European countries have been leery of Tehran since it was learned that the Iranians had for years concealed parts of their nuclear program from U.N. inspectors.
Ahmadinejad said Europeans should be thankful Iranians import their products, but instead they “apply hostile policies against Iran and do not recognize our legitimate rights” – a reference to Iran’s right to a peaceful atomic program under the treaty.
The three European powers offered trade, political and security cooperation in their effort to persuade Iran to abandon the enrichment of uranium and instead import fuel for its nuclear program.
Iran rejected that idea, saying it must be self-sufficient and able to produce reactor fuel.
As parliament began debating Ahmadinejad’s proposed Cabinet, conservative lawmaker Emad Afrough lambasted the nominee for interior minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, describing the former intelligence official as a leading religious hard-liner.
The new government showed “radical autocratic tendencies,” Afrough said.
