Ahmadinejad: IAEA gets orders from US

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lashed out at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for doing the US bidding, urging the agency once again not to be swayed by political pressures, Press TV reported with reference to IRNA.

"(The IAEA Director General) Yukiya Amano is moving in the direction of harming the agency's reputation… The agency is taking orders from the United States," quoted President Ahmadinejad as saying in a Tuesday press conference in Tehran.

President Ahmadinejad's remarks came a day after Amano claimed that the IAEA had received new unspecific information indicating that Iran may not merely be engaged in developing nuclear energy for civilian purposes. The IAEA chief also accused Tehran of not cooperating with international nuclear experts.

The Iranian chief executive dismissed the allegations, insisting that "such comments have no legal value and aside from harming the agency's reputation, it will have no other outcome."

He emphasized that Iran would go ahead with its nuclear program and added the Islamic Republic will cooperate with the IAEA only if it conducts itself on a fair basis.

President Ahmadinejad also criticized a number of Western countries for manipulating Iran's nuclear case merely as a "political ploy" and stressed, "I am repeating that Iran's nuclear train has no brakes and no reverse gear."

"The West, the US and its allies in particular, are not interested in independence and advancement of nations… This is the reason behind their hostility toward us," he said.

The Iranian president further reiterated that no offer by the P5+1 countries - Russia, China, France, Britain, the US plus Germany - can persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium.

"Centrifuge machines are currently working while new generations of centrifuges are under development," he said, noting that no "technical problems" exist in the Islamic Republic's nuclear program.

He reiterated that Iran has had "utmost cooperation" with the IAEA in its legal nuclear activities and expressed Tehran's readiness to continue its cooperation with the agency if it changes its "hegemonic" approach.

Iran has repeatedly and vehemently rejected unverified Western allegations that it is pursuing a military nuclear program, insisting that as a member of the IAEA and a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has every right to engage in nuclear activities for all peaceful purposes.

The IAEA has been regularly conducting rigorous inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities but has never found any evidence of Iran's diversion from a civilian nuclear program.


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