IRAN: Western concern over nuclear proliferation is "a big lie", Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday while his US counterpart, President Bush, again called on Tehran to halt its atomic programme.
Speaking on a visit to Indonesia, Mr Ahmadinejad accused Iran's critics of hypocrisy on the nuclear issue.
"They are themselves engaged in nuclear activities and they are expanding day by day. They test new brands of weapons of mass destruction every day," he told a news conference.
"Big powers pretend [ they] are concerned, but it's a big lie," he added.
Washington and its European allies are seeking a UN Security Council resolution that would oblige Iran to halt all uranium enrichment work or face possible sanctions.
Tehran says it only wants to produce low-grade enriched uranium to use in atomic power reactors, not the highly enriched uranium needed to make bombs.
Meanwhile, President Bush said a lengthy letter from Mr Ahmadinejad this week failed to answer international demands that Iran stop work which could be used to make nuclear arms.
"Britain, France, Germany - coupled with the United States and Russia and China - have all agreed that the Iranians should not have a weapon or the capacity to make a weapon," Mr Bush said.
"There is a universal agreement toward that goal and the letter didn't address that question," he told Florida newspapers in an interview posted on the St Petersburg Times website.
Mr Ahmadinejad's 18-page letter was the first publicly announced communication from an Iranian president to a US president since Iran's 1979 revolution.
It discussed alleged American foreign policy misdeeds and defended scientific research as a basic right of nations.
Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose country, along with China, has so far resisted Washington's calls for tougher UN action on Iran, issued a veiled warning to the United States not to take military action against the Islamic state.
In an apparent reference to mounting tension between the United States and Iran, he said: "Methods of force rarely give the desired result and often their consequences are even more terrible than the original threat."
In a letter published on Time magazine's website, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani called for a negotiated solution to the standoff, whereby Iran would accept greater UN supervision of its atomic work.
"This situation . . . if miscalculations continue, can easily turn into a crisis with potentially global ramifications for . . . the economic and security interests of all concerned in the region and beyond," he wrote.
But the proposal by Mr Rohani gave no ground on the key western demand that Iran scrap enrichment.
The UN Security Council is considering a draft resolution by Britain and France that demands Iran suspend enrichment. Russia and China oppose parts of the text.
US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Iran must choose between accepting a deal and becoming isolated.
"Iran knows there are two options that have been there all along, which is they can have a civil nuclear programme that is appropriate and the international community can support, or they can face isolation," she told reporters at an appearance with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
After failing this week at the United Nations to persuade major powers to agree on a resolution against Iran, Dr Rice predicted that agreement would be reached within weeks.
"We will have Security Council action," she said.
European powers will meet on Monday to work on an offer of trade and other incentives for Iran if it halts enrichment. - (Reuters)