President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday any country that tried to impose new sanctions on Iran would regret its actions, as the United States and Russia voiced shared concern about Tehran's nuclear programme. Ahmadinejad was speaking a day after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought oil giant Saudi Arabia's support to help win Chinese backing for additional sanctions. Clinton said a new round of sanctions should target Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
"Iran will retaliate ... of course, if somebody acts against Iran our response will definitely be firm enough...(to) make them regretful," Ahmadinejad told a news conference, without elaborating. "Sanctions will not harm Iran." A joint letter from the United States, Russia and France expressed concern about Tehran's nuclear work and said its decision to escalate uranium enrichment - rather than implement a nuclear fuel swap - was unjustified.
Ahmadinejad said talks were still under way on the proposed fuel exchange and the issue was not yet closed. He did not give details, but Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was visiting Tehran on Tuesday to try to salvage the UN-brokered uranium exchange deal amid growing calls for new sanctions against Iran.
"We have passed our own original proposals. We have brought up some ideas to unlock the impasse," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin told Reuters in Ankara. Western powers had hoped the proposal, brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency, would result in Iran sending most of its low-enriched uranium abroad for processing and ease their concerns that it might build a nuclear bomb.
"The case is not yet closed...we have already announced that we are ready for a fuel exchange within a fair framework. We are still ready for an exchange, even with America," Ahmadinejad said. But he added that such a swap should take place inside Iran, a likely non-starter for the West. His order last week to start production of higher-grade uranium, rather than agree to the UN-brokered swap proposal, exposed Tehran to new calls for UN sanctions.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday Iran could face sanctions if it failed to allay international fears about its nuclear programme, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, on a visit to Moscow, called for "paralysing sanctions" on Iran. The joint letter from the United States, Russia and France, obtained by Reuters on Tuesday, said Iran's move to escalate uranium enrichment was unjustified because the draft nuclear fuel deal lists guarantees for Tehran's benefit.
"(This) is wholly unjustified ... If Iran goes forward with this escalation, it would raise new concerns about Iran's nuclear intentions," the letter to the IAEA said. Ahmadinejad said Iran had been willing to send its uranium abroad rather than enrich it further at home, but that it had "found that there is no goodwill in this regard."
He dismissed Clinton's accusations that Iran was moving toward a military dictatorship. The US military budget was 80 times larger than that of the Islamic Republic, he said. "We don't take her comments seriously," Ahmadinejad said. He said Iran was not worried about sanctions targeting its gasoline imports as the country could become an exporter of the fuel. "There are several refineries under construction...and as soon as they become operational we can even export gasoline."