TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's supreme leader on Sunday denied his country had any plans to build atomic weapons, but the president insisted the nuclear program itself was not negotiable.Speaking to an audience of Revolutionary Guards, the elite military unit that answers directly to him, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made a rare direct statement that Iran is not interested in nuclear weapons. "While the Iranian nation has no atomic bomb and has no plans to create this deadly weapon, it is still a respected nation" for its spiritual and revolutionary values, he told the Guards whose leader he had just replaced.
| Gotta be controlled by a holy man in a holy nation, though. |
He noted that the recent report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog which applauded Iran for its increased cooperation showed that European nations have a more positive approach to the situation than certain other countries. "There are only one or two countries that do not understand reality and they think that they can force Iranian nation to back down," Ahmadinejad said, in an apparent reference to the U.S. and Britain.