IRAN - Apr 13 - Tehran Refuses To Back Down Over Nuclear Plans.

The Iranian Pres Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, remains defiant over his country's nuclear plans. "We won't hold talks with anyone about the right of the Iranian nation and no one has the right to retreat, even one iota", the Pres told the IRNA news agency. His comments comes as head of the IAEA Muhammad ElBaradei, arrived in the country aiming to persuade Tehran to ditch its uranium enrichment plans and comply with international demands for a nuclear freeze. ElBaradei later said in Tehran that his team of inspectors had yet to complete tests to confirm whether Iran had successfully enriched uranium to 3.5%, as the government contends. "Iran will accelerate its efforts in the next couple of weeks to provide clarity to the issues that we need to clarify before I write the report", ElBaradei said. ElBaradei has been tasked by the UN Security Council to report by the end of April whether Iran was complying with demands to halt uranium enrichment, which has civilian and military uses. The visit follows loud criticism from Security Council members on Apr 13 of Iran's declaration that it had achieved significant progress in uranium enrichment in defiance of international demands for a nuclear freeze. The US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice, said the council, which convenes on Iran at the end of this month, should take "strong steps to make certain that we maintain the credibility of the international community". Russia and China, the two council members most sympathetic towards Iran, added their voices to EU governments, and told Tehran its actions ran counter to UN decisions. A Security Council statement on Apr 28 called on Iran to suspend all enrichment-related work within 30 days. Senior officials from the five permanent members of the council are due to meet next week to evaluate a response to the Iranian move. Moscow, however, warned on Apr 13 against the use of force to deal with Tehran. Russian FM Sergei Lavrov, said military strikes on nuclear facilities would create "a dangerous explosive blaze in the Middle East, where there are already enough blazes". Pres Ahmadi-Nejad announced triumphantly on Apr 12 that Tehran had joined "nuclear countries" capable of enriching uranium, but only for peaceful use in nuclear energy production. Other officials said that for the first time Iran had enriched uranium to the 3.5% level in a cascade of 164 centrifuges. If confirmed, this would be a big step towards mastering nuclear technology. But Iran could still be years away from producing highly enriched uranium on the industrial scale needed for atomic bombs. The Iranian announcement nonetheless raised the stakes in the nuclear dispute, exacerbating tensions already running high on reports that the US was preparing plans for possible military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. "This is not a question of Iran's right to civil nuclear power", Ms Rice said on Apr 12. "This is a question that the world doesn't believe Iran should have the capability and technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon". Diplomats in Europe said the Iranian move was designed to create facts on the ground: to underline Iran's determination to keep a small-scale research enrichment programme and the inability of the outside world to stop it. A regime insider told the FT recently that Iran's leadership had decided to seek a compromise, based on holding out for 164 centrifuges while carrying out industrial enrichment in Russia. Until now, however, such a proposal has been adamantly rejected by the US and European governments, which have demanded that all enrichment activities be moved to Russia. The enrichment progress is part of a string of technological breakthroughs Iran has claimed in recent weeks, as it tries to project an image of strength in its confrontation with the west. Earlier this month Tehran unveiled new missile capabilities during a week of highly publicised military exercises in the Strait of Hormuz, through which two- fifths of the world's oil passes. The muscle-flexing was designed to send the message that Tehran could stand up to a military threat and retaliate against the US in the region. On Apr 13 the Iranian media hailed a great victory in the completion of the nuclear cycle. The conservative newspaper Iran said Tehran had ended "decades of nuclear apartheid in the world". Muhammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, insisted on state TV that Tehran planned to push ahead with the nuclear programme and have 3,000 centrifuges by late 2006 and 54,000 by a later date. But while there was a small street demonstration in Tehran in support of Apr 11 announcement, the overall public mood is difficult to gauge. Iranians are generally supportive of the nuclear programme but many people are also wary of confrontation, given three decades of revolution, war with Iraq (1980-88) and an international isolation that eased only in the 1990s. "I was frightened when I heard the news", said a 40-year-old shopkeeper. "I don't think this is any time to be proud. They shouldn't have done this, given the 30-day deadline [of the UN Security Council]".