Ahmadinejad: Iran won't retreat one iota from its nuclear rights

Iran will not retreat "one iota" from its nuclear rights, the Islamic republic's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Saturday, the day of an informal deadline set by Western officials in a row over Tehran's atomic ambitions.

Ahmadinejad made the remark in a statement posted on the presidential website after talks in Tehran with Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"In whichever negotiation we take part ... it is unequivocally with the view to the realization of Iran's nuclear right, and the Iranian nation would not retreat one iota from its rights," Ahmadinejad's statement said.

According to the statement, Assad said that based on international agreements, every country, including Iran, has the right to engage in uranium enrichment and possess nuclear power stations.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power program. Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, denies the charge.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off from imposing more United Nations sanctions on Iran if Tehran would agree to freeze any expansion of its nuclear work, to get preliminary talks started between the two sides.

That would suggest a deadline of Saturday but Iran, which has repeatedly ruled out curbing its nuclear program, dismissed the idea of having two weeks to reply.

Earlier Saturday, Assad arrived for talks in Tehran, a few weeks after he told French President Nicolas Sarkozy that he would use his good relations with Iran to help resolve the Islamic republic's nuclear stand-off with the West.

Syria's president met with Ahmadinejad and other senior officials.

While visiting Paris last month, Assad said that a military attack on Iran over its nuclear program would have grave consequences for the United States, Israel and the world.

Washington says it wants a diplomatic solution to the dispute but has not ruled out military action if that fails.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana - who leads nuclear talks with Iran for the six major powers - will not declare Iran has missed the deadline if it does not reply by Saturday, EU diplomats said, but the West wants a reply in the next week.

"One should not focus too much on Saturday," one EU official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "If it's not Saturday but next week, we'll not make a big fuss about it. What matters is to get a clear answer quickly, in the very coming days."

An EU diplomat said "we are continuing our double approach of dialogue and pressure. If dialogue does not work, we could continue with additional pressure ... at the UN or EU level."

The sources were not authorized to speak publicly about the delicate diplomacy.

Germany's foreign minister urged Iran to stop playing for time and deliver a clear answer to the initiatives offered by six world powers, according to an interview released Saturday.

"I appeal again to the Iranian side no longer to play for time, but to give us a usable answer to our offers - stop dallying," Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier was quoted as saying in an interview with the weekly Der Spiegel.

The United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany in June offered Iran economic and other incentives to coax it into halting uranium enrichment, which can have both civilian and military uses.

The freeze idea is aimed at getting preliminary talks started, although formal negotiations on the incentives package will not start before Iran stops enriching uranium, which Tehran says is solely aimed at providing fuel for power plants.

Iran, whose refusal to halt the work has drawn three rounds of UN sanctions since 2006, has rejected suspension in the past and has given no indication that it is ready for a freeze.

	Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad welcoming his Syrian counterpart Bashar Assad in an official ceremony in Tehran on Saturday. (Reuters)