Ahmadinejad: Whatever they do, Iran will continue its activities ~ Sanctions are not important

Source: Alalam.ir, 18-9-2008
TEHRAN--President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Thursday that threats of any more sanctions would not prevent Iran from continuing its peaceful nuclear activities.
"Whatever they do, Iran will continue its activities. Sanctions are not important," Ahmadinejad told a news conference. "The era of such threats has ended."
The United States and its European allies this week vowed to seek harsher sanctions on Tehran just because of not suspending its legal nuclear activities.
Referring to the latest report issued by IAEA, Ahmadinejad said that the IAEA report had confirmed the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program and that Tehran had cooperated with the Vienna-based UN agency with "full transparency".
He also said the IAEA had no mandate to consider Western intelligence, which claims that Iran had linked projects to process uranium, test high explosives and modify a missile cone in a way suitable for a nuclear warhead.
The Islamic Republic repeatedly says its nuclear work is for generating electricity.
Ahmadinejad added: "The United States government has made a claim that is beyond and outside of the purview and the provisions of the IAEA and the IAEA does not have a mandate really to examine such claims."
"Those who say we want to put sanctions do so because of their weakness ... They are putting sanctions on themselves," Ahmadinejad told the news conference.
"We will never surrender to excessive demands," he said.