Iranian president vows not to back away from uranium enrichment

Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad today vowed that Iran would not back away from uranium enrichment and said the world must treat Iran as a nuclear power.

The comments were made as Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, arrived in Tehran for talks aimed at defusing tension over Iran’s nuclear programme.

“We know they (the U.S. and its allies) are waiting for us to retreat an inch so that they use that (against us),” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

Ahmadinejad declared on Tuesday that Iran “has joined the club of nuclear countries” by successfully producing enriched uranium for the first time, a key process in what Iran maintains is a peaceful energy programme.

Western diplomats and experts familiar with the programme, however, say Iran still is far from producing any weapons-grade material needed for bombs and may be exaggerating its own progress.