Before U.N. vote, Iran says atomic work won't stop
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday that world powers will not prevent it pursuing its nuclear ambitions, the day before a possible vote on a third round of U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Western envoys at the U.N. Security Council said they expected a vote on Saturday on a new resolution because Iran had refused to halt work that the West believes is aimed at making nuclear bombs. Iran denies this and says sanctions are illegal.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing a popularity test in a parliamentary election on March 14, has been criticized by some of his Iranian opponents for strident speeches, which they say isolate Iran.
A senior Iranian cleric on Friday backed him and his handling of the atomic file, the latest supportive remark from Iran's powerful clerical establishment before the vote.
But a U.S. spokesman, reacting to the Iranian president's comments, said such remarks were pushing the Islamic Republic further outside the international community.
"FINAL VICTORY"
"The Iranian nation will have the final victory in the nuclear arena," Ahmadinejad told a military gathering in Tehran, according to the official news agency IRNA. "No power will be able to obstruct the movement of the Iranian nation."
The president had previously said no amount of U.N. sanctions would deter Iran from what he insists is a peaceful program aimed at mastering technology to make electricity so that Iran can export more of its oil and gas reserves.
Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: "He just further isolates Iran and the Iranian people and that's not our goal at all."
"Iran knows what it needs to do, Iran is the outlier here as the international community unites."
Ahmadinejad has said this month's report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran was a victory because it said several suspicions about Tehran's aims had been resolved. However, it also said some concerns remained.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's conservative Guardian Council, a body that vets and can bar candidates for parliament, gave Ahmadinejad his backing in a sermon at Friday prayers that was broadcast on state radio.
"The victory you (Iranians) are experiencing is because of the courage of the Iranian president," he said.
REFORMISTS BARRED
Reformists opposed to the president accuse the Guardian Council of political bias in barring many of their hopefuls, an accusation that the council rejects.
Parliament does not decide major policy but the election may indicate Ahmadinejad's chances for re-election in 2009.
Jannati urged voters to pick those who had "tasted poverty".
Ahmadinejad, the son of a blacksmith, has played on his humble beginnings and in the 2005 presidential race called for Iran's oil wealth to be shared out more fairly -- a slogan that helped secure the backing of many of Iran's poor.
But his economic and spending policies have since been criticized by some as inflation has risen to 19 percent.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who does not endorse any political party, praised the president on Tuesday for his handling of the nuclear issue and criticized those who had counseled compromise with the West in the past.
Khamenei has the final say in all matters of state, including atomic policy, under Iran's system of clerical rule.
The five permanent Security Council members -- the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia -- and Germany, which is not on the council, agreed on a draft resolution on January 22.
U.S. and British envoys expect a council vote on Saturday.
Four of the 15-members of the Security Council have voiced skepticism about the resolution. Eleven others, including the five permanent members, support it.
The draft calls for more travel and financial restrictions on named Iranian individuals and companies, and makes some restrictions mandatory. Two earlier sanctions rounds were approved unanimously in December 2006 and March 2007.
(Editing by Kevin Liffey)
