President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows not to budge an inch on its rights

Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 3:37 pm under World Breaking news President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vows not to budge an inch on its rights

TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his visiting Syrian counterpart on Saturday that although Iran welcomes talks on its controversial nuclear programme and it will not budge an inch on its rights.

“We will take part in any negotiations and talk about any issue which consolidates our nuclear rights,” the Iran’s state-run website quoted Ahmadinejad as telling staunch regional ally President Bashar al-Assad.

“Iran will not give an inch on its nuclear rights,” he added.

Assad’s visit coincides with this weekend’s US deadline for Iran to respond to an international package of incentives for it to freeze its drive to enrich uranium amid warnings of new sanctions if it does not.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino warned: “Negative consequences await if they don’t have a positive response to our very generous incentives package, and that would possibly come in the form of sanctions.”

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave Iran two weeks to come up with a “serious” reply after an international meeting in Geneva on July 19, which saw Tehran broadly accused of stonewalling.