Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected growing
Western pressure to give a speedy response to a new proposal on
Iranian nuclear issue, the state television reported.
"We have been living under oppressive conditions for 27 years,
Iran will not suffer any more from incremental pressure,"
Ahmadinejad said when he met Britain's new ambassador to
Tehran.
On June 21, the president said that Iran would formally respond
in mid-August to the package aimed at solving the nuclear
dispute.
However, western leaders said Iran wouldn't need such a long
time to respond to the "reasonable deal", urging the country to
accept the proposal in a few weeks or face international
sanctions.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called
Sunday on the Europeans and the US to be more patient over its
formal response.
"We have to hold elevated discussions on the package, that's why
we can not give a speedy response," he said.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented the package
backed by five permanent member states of the UN Security Council
plus Germany to Iran on June 6.
The package includes incentives to encourage Iran to suspend
uranium enrichment, a process the West says Iran is using to make
atom bombs. But it also contains penalties if Iran, which insists
on its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy, rejects the
offer.
(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)
