Iran wants apology after nuke report

TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called on the U.S. and its allies Saturday to "apologize" for accusing Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, a day after the U.N. nuclear watchdog released its latest report on Iran.

Ahmadinejad said the International Atomic Energy Agency report vindicated Iran and warned Tehran would take unspecified "decisive reciprocal measures" against any country that imposed additional sanctions against it.

The IAEA report said many past questions about Iran's nuclear program had been resolved but it highlighted Tehran's continued refusal to halt uranium enrichment.

Ahmadinejad said in a televised address to the nation that the best way for the U.S. and its allies to "compensate for their mistakes" is to "apologize and pay compensation."

"If they continue" pursuing sanctions, he said, "we have definitely drawn up reciprocal measures." He did not elaborate.

Iran is under two sets of U.N. Security Council sanctions for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, technology that can produce both fuel for nuclear reactors and the fissile material for a bomb. Tehran insists its program is intended only to produce energy.

The five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany have agreed on a draft resolution for a third round of sanctions.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday "there is very good reason after this report to proceed to the third Security Council resolution."

But Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said Saturday that Iran's nuclear issue "has to return to the IAEA as soon as possible."

"Should the issue remain at the Security Council, it will only discredit the council," he said at a news conference.

The push for harsher sanctions against Iran became more difficult at the end of last year when American intelligence agencies issued a report saying Tehran had suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and had not restarted it.

However, U.S. officials have continued to insist Iran's nuclear activities are a threat because they could allow Tehran to restart weapons development in the future.

The IAEA report said Iran had dismissed as "baseless" information provided by Western intelligence agencies that Tehran's alleged missile and explosives experiments are part of a nuclear weapons program.

Ahmadinejad said Saturday that the new information forwarded to the IAEA had been faked, claiming "our schoolchildren can make forgeries better than what they do."

The 11-page IAEA report obtained by The Associated Press said Iran "has not suspended its enrichment-related activities."

Instead, said the report, Iran "started the development of new-generation centrifuges" -- an expansion of enrichment -- and continued working on heavy water nuclear facilities. When finished, Iran could cull them for plutonium, a possible fissile payload in nuclear warheads.

At the same time, the report said that Tehran has cooperated in other areas of an IAEA probe, leading the agency to put to rest for now suspicions that several past experiments and activities were linked to a weapons program.

Specifically, the report suggested the agency was satisfied with answers provided by Iran on the origin of traces of enriched uranium in a military facility; on experiments with polonium, which can also be used in a weapons program; and on purchases on the nuclear black market.

It said that in those areas information given by Tehran is either "consistent with its findings (or) ... not inconsistent with its findings," suggesting it was content for now with explanations that these activities were not weapons-related.

Iranian newspapers hailed the IAEA report as a victory for Iran.

"Iran vindicated," said a front-page headline in the hard-line daily Hezbollah.

Also Saturday, a group of hard-line students gathered in central Tehran to celebrate what they said was "Iran's victory" against U.S.-led allegations, distributing sweets to passers-by in the streets.

The report will be the focus of discussions at an IAEA board report starting March 3. At that meeting, the U.S. and its allies are weighing whether to ask the board to approve a resolution declaring that the agency was unable to shed light on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program, according to diplomats.