No more threats, Britain warns Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

01 Feb 2006 (CBC News) – The president of Iran says his country will continue its nuclear program, as a top British official warned Tehran against making threats while dealing with the international community.

"Our nation can’t give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in an address to thousands of supporters in the southern city of Bushehr on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw met privately with Iran’s foreign secretary, Manouchehr Mottaki, in London while in the British capital for a conference on Afghanistan.
"Mottaki was warned not to walk away from the [International Atomic Energy Agency] additional protocol or to make threats," a spokesman for the British Foreign Ministry said.
A day earlier, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States – said they plan to ask the IAEA to report Iran to the council.
IAEA members will decide on Thursday whether the agency will report Iran’s nuclear activity to the UN Security Council.
Iran says it may stop co-operating with the IAEA, which conducts snap inspections of nuclear facilities, if it is sent to the council.