Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday the "enemies" of his country's nuclear programme had been defeated ahead of the release of the latest UN report on the atomic drive.It seems so. With a little help from a friend.
International attention focused on the report as US President Barack Obama said "time is running out" for Iran to respond to a UN plan aiming to ease international fears that the Islamic Republic is working on a nuclear bomb.
Russia, meanwhile, announced that a controversial nuclear power plant it is building in Iran will not start operations by the end of 2009 as previously announced.
Ahmadinejad said the West would have to come to terms with Iran's nuclear progress, Iran's state broadcaster quoted the president as saying on his website.
"Enemies have politicised the nuclear issue using all of their abilities to try to make the Iranian nation surrender, but they have been defeated," Ahmadinejad said.
Nuclear cooperation with Iran is "beneficial to the Westerners because their opposition to it will make Iran stronger and more advanced," he added insisting that Iran's nuclear rights are "non-negotiable" and the research was being pursued "entirely under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision."
The IAEA sent its new report, having stated several times that Iran is not cooperating with UN Security Council demands, backed by three rounds of sanctions, that it halt uranium enrichment.
The new report will also give details of an October visit to an atomic site at Qom, that Iran had until recently kept secret.
Obama on Sunday won the strongest backing yet from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev over international frustration at Iran's failure to answer an offer to enrich uranium outside of Iran.
You forgot to include China, Noobama.
"Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran has been unable to say yes" to the proposal, Obama said after talks with Medvedev in Singapore. "We now are running out of time with respect to that approach."
Russia, which has the strongest ties with Tehran of any big power, has traditionally been unwilling to punish Iran with tough measures. But Medvedev said that Tehran risked sanctions if the crisis continued.
He said Moscow was "not completely happy about the pace" of efforts to resolve the crisis.
"In case we fail, the other options remain on the table, in order to move the process in a different direction," he said in a reference to new UN sanctions against Tehran.
Russia's Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said that the Bushehr nuclear plant would not now be ready this year, Russian news agencies reported. Shmatko insisted the delay was technical and the project would still go forward.
Russia, like the United States, is a veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member, and its support is crucial if US warnings of tough sanctions are to carry weight.
Obama described as "fair" the proposal offered to Iran, which would see Russia lead an international consortium helping Tehran to further enrich uranium for a research reactor.
Referring to sanctions, he said that "we will begin to discuss and prepare for these other pathways" as Tehran could not be counted on to fulfil its international obligations.
The West suspects Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear energy programme. Iran vehemently denies the claims while Russia has said there is no evidence to support the accusations.
IAEA Secretary General Mohamed ElBaradei, whose mandate finishes this month, is to chair his last board of governor's meeting on November 26, during which the new report will be discussed.