Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei denies wanting to develop nuclear weapons

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/16/iran-ayatollah-khamenei-nuclear-weapons

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Iran's supreme leader has said the Islamic republic is not seeking to develop nuclear weapons but warned that no world power could stop the regime from building them if it chose to do so.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday that his country backs the elimination of nuclear weapons.

"We believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. We don't want to build atomic weapons. But if we didn't believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us," Khamenei said in comments posted on his website, khamenei.ir.

The US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany are due to meet Iran for talks in Kazakhstan on 26 February to tackle a decade-old row that has already produced four rounds of UN sanctions against Iran.

Separate talks between Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agency this week failed to produce a deal on reviving an investigation into Iranian research that could be used to produce nuclear weapons.

Tehran's leaders have remained defiant against six UN security council resolutions calling on them to halt enrichment of uranium and they have refused to co-operate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency over their nuclear programme.

Iran recently said it had begun installing a new generation of centrifuges at its main uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, a move that will allow it to vastly increase its pace of uranium enrichment in defiance of UN calls to halt such activities.