TEHRAN, April 3, (Agencies): Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a renewed call from the United States to engage diplomatically to overcome the nuclear standoff, saying he saw no change in Washington’s hostile policy.
Speaking at a factory inauguration on Saturday, Ahmadinejad said a message by US President Barack Obama to mark the Iranian new year last month contained “three or four beautiful words” but nothing new of substance.
“They say that ‘we have extended our hands to the people of Iran but the government of Iran and the people of Iran pushed it back’. What hand did you extend toward us?” Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.
“What changed? Your sanctions were lifted? The adverse propaganda was stopped? The pressure was alleviated? Did you change your attitude in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine?”

After taking office last year Obama indicated he would engage with Iran if it “unclenched its fist”. But, accusing Tehran of rejecting diplomatic approaches over its nuclear programme, which Washington says aims to create a nuclear bomb, Obama is pushing world powers to impose new UN sanctions.
Iran would easily cope with any new sanctions on petroleum imports, Ahmadinejad said, adding that such measures would only serve to strengthen his people’s resolve.
“You should know that the more hostile you are, the stronger an incentive our people will have, it will double,” he said.
“They said ‘we want sanctions on petroleum’. Why don’t you do it? The sooner the better.”
Ahmadinejad also sent a message to Israel, which is urging tough international action to stop Iran’s nuclear programme, and which has not ruled out taking military action against what it sees as a threat to its existence.

Referring to Israeli air strikes on Friday on the Gaza Strip, ruled by Iranian-backed Hamas, Ahmadinejad said:
“One more time I warn the leaders of arrogant powers and the supporters of Zionist regime to not make a new mistake in the Middle East — attacking Gaza will cost you too much.”
Ahmadinejad said on Saturday that world pressure on Iran, including talk of new sanctions, makes the Islamic republic more determined than ever to pursue its nuclear programme.
His defiance came after Obama vowed to ratchet up global pressure on Tehran to abandon its controversial atomic programme which he said indicated Iran was aiming for a weapons capability.
Iran’s atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi, meanwhile, said that plans to build one or two new uranium enrichment plants had been submitted to Ahmadinejad.
“You (world powers) can cut your own throat, jump up or down, issue statements and declarations and pass resolutions... but don’t think you can stop the progress and building of the Iranian nation,” Ahmadinejad said.
“The more overt your animosity towards us, the more determined the Iranian nation will be to go forward,” the hardliner said in a speech broadcast live on state television.
Ahmadinejad also reiterated that Iran had started making its own nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor after world powers “did not” supply the material.
“Based on the law which you wrote in the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) charter, you were supposed to give the fuel for the Tehran reactor, but you did not,” he said.
“We said we will do it ourselves and they made fun, but our experts did it.”
The controversy over fuel for the internationally supervised reactor and Iran beginning to enrich uranium to 20-percent level have emerged as the latest points of confrontation with world powers.
On Saturday, Salehi said the construction of new uranium enrichment sites may start in the first half of the current Iranian year, which runs to March 2011.
“According to the atomic energy organisation (of Iran), we will launch one or two facilities,” he told the ILNA news agency.
“These facilities are dispersed in different areas of the country and they will be built at the targeted sites as Ahmadinejad sees fit.”

Deal
Under a UN-drafted deal in October 2009, world powers proposed supplying nuclear fuel for the Tehran reactor in return for Iran’s stockpiles of low-enriched uranium (LEU).
But Tehran insisted it would hand over its LEU only when it receives the nuclear fuel, with the exchange taking place inside Iran — a condition opposed by the world powers.
Since then Washington has led global pressure on Tehran for a fourth round of UN sanctions, with only Beijing — one of the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council — still opposing this.
On Friday, Obama said global pressure on Tehran was gathering pace and warned of “huge destabilising effects in the region” if Iran acquires the capacity to make an atomic bomb.
“All the evidence indicates that the Iranians are trying to develop the capacity to develop nuclear weapons,” Obama told CBS.
Iran has fiercely denied seeking to develop the bomb, saying its contested nuclear programme is purely for peaceful purposes to meet the energy needs of a fast growing population.
On Friday, Obama also urged his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao to join forces to stop Iran’s atomic programme. Beijing has emerged as Tehran main economic partner and continues to press for a diplomatic solution to the crisis.
Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, who was in China on Friday, said Beijing was heeding Tehran’s calls for support.
“We jointly emphasized during our talks that these sanctions tools have lost their effectiveness,” Jalili said after meeting Chinese officials including Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi.
But Jalili’s remarks that he had secured Chinese backing ran counter to a growing quiet confidence among US officials that Beijing was gradually being swayed over to its side.
Obama, meanwhile, also stressed he had reached out to Iran after assuming office last year to give it the option of rejoining the international community, but Tehran had only isolated itself further.
Ahmadinejad, however, said Obama had failed to make any change despite his early promises. “In reality nothing has changed... The pressures are still on. The sanctions are still on,” he said.

Firm
The IAEA and Western intelligence agencies are investigating how an Iranian firm obtained critical valves and vacuum gauges to enrich uranium, The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.
The probe was launched after the International Atomic Energy Agency received an email on January 14 alleging that illicit goods were being sent to Iran in a “careful and secret” way, through an intermediary representing a Chinese company based near Shanghai, the Journal said.
The email said Iran’s Javedan Mehr Toos (JMT) obtained the valves in recent weeks from Vikas Kumar Talwar, an intermediary representing Zheijiang Ouhai Trade Corp. of China, a subsidiary of the Wenzhou-based Jinzhou Group, the newspaper said.

An investigator familiar with the IAEA probe told the Journal that Iran has made about 10 attempts to acquire uranium enrichment valves in the last two years.
“Some deliveries got through, others didn’t,” he said.
The special hardware was made by a French company that was owned by US industrial conglomerate Tyco International until December. Both firms told the Journal they knew nothing about the case.
Officials told the newspaper that manufacturers’ products sometimes arrive in Iran without the makers’ knowledge.
The report came as US President Barack Obama’s administration has stepped up pressure for China and other members of the United Nations Security Council to agree to slap a fourth round of UN sanctions on Iran that could further restrict suspect shipments headed for the Islamic republic.
China has been the most reluctant of the five countries that can veto UN sanctions to support the proposed measures.