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/ 20 February 2007
Iran wants talks on its nuclear programme but rejects preconditions demanding it freeze the work, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday, just ahead of a United Nations deadline for Tehran to back down. The UN Security Council has given Iran until Wednesday to stop enriching uranium. Tehran says the process will only make fuel for power plants.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday Iran would not retreat from its right to nuclear technology and that a United Nations resolution imposing sanctions on Iran was ”invalid”. ”The Iranian nation is wise and will stick to its nuclear work and is ready to defend it completely,” Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.
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/ 24 December 2006
Iran will start installing 3 000 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant from Sunday as an immediate reaction to the United Nations Security Council resolution, Tehran’s chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said. ”We will start our installation activities at the Natanz facility from Sunday,” he told the Kayhan newspaper.
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/ 11 December 2006
Iran opened a conference on Monday to examine the Holocaust and question whether Nazi Germany used gas chambers to kill Jews, drawing condemnation in the West and criticism from Iran’s Jewish community. Jewish rabbis were present at the government-sponsored event, Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision, alongside academics from Europe.
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/ 27 November 2006
An Iranian military aircraft crashed at a Tehran airport on Monday, killing at least 37 people, state-run television reported. It was the latest in a string of aviation disasters to hit the Islamic Republic. The television report said one person was in hospital after surviving the crash in the Russian-designed Antonov-74.
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/ 16 November 2006
Iran’s president said on Thursday his country was about to take the ”final step” in its nuclear programme, in a fresh statement defying United Nations calls to halt work the West believes is aimed at building atomic bombs. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad did not say what the final step was, but he repeated comments he made this week that Iran would celebrate its ”right to nuclear technology” by March.
The United States and the United Kingdom said on Tuesday Iran could soon face sanctions because it showed no sign of halting sensitive nuclear work, while the European Union said the latest talks had been helpful but had brought no breakthrough. A senior Iranian atomic official said suspending uranium enrichment would not solve the nuclear stand-off.
Iran has completed a new phase in its Arak heavy-water reactor plant, a presidential official said on Saturday, referring to part of Iran’s atomic programme which the West fears is aimed at producing bombs. The official said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would give a speech later in the day ”announcing that the heavy-water project has become operational”.