Ahmadinejad vows crushing response to attack

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has waned against an attack on Iran, saying any act of aggression against the country will be met with a crushing response.

“We will welcome a hand which has sincerely reached out for friendship, but if a hand is extended for aggression, the nation will cut it from the arm,” he told crowds of people in the northeastern town of Birjand in South Khorasan Province.

Ahmadinejad further said that Iran would stand by regional countries in case of any possible attack by Israel.

“The Zionist regime is provoked by Western countries to attack its neighbors… but what I have understood after talking to the leaders of the regional countries is that one more mistake will mean the end of the Zionists,” he added.

On Iran’s nuclear program, Ahmadinejad reiterated that Tehran was not after making an atomic bomb and stressed Iranians do not need such weapons.

The Iranian president said Tehran has mastered the uranium enrichment technology, stressing that the country was resolved to use all domestic capacities for the nation’s dignity.

Ahmadinejad, however, added that Iran still welcomed a nuclear fuel swap deal without any preconditions inside the Iranian territory.

Iran needs 120 kilos (264 pounds) of 20 percent-enriched uranium to fuel the Tehran research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients and is soon to run out of fuel.

The West has been pressuring Iran to accept a UN-backed deal which requires Iran to send most of its domestically-produced low enriched uranium (LEU) abroad for conversion into the more refined fuel for the Tehran reactor.

Citing the West’s previous failures to meet its obligations regarding Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran has asked for concrete guarantees over the return of the fuel.