Ahmadinejad: Iran won't give up nuclear program

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- Iran won't abandon its nuclear ambitions under Western pressure, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Saturday, adding that the Islamic republic will hold "fair and unconditional" talks with West.

His remarks, delivered Saturday to thousands gathered at the shrine of the late Ayatollah Khomeini, echoed those reported Friday by the Islamic Republic News Agency.

The West announced this week that it would offer Iran a "substantive" incentives package to abandon its nuclear enrichment program and come back to the negotiating table. But on Saturday, Ahmadinejad repeated that Iran won't compromise on its right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes, the news agency said.

Despite Iran's insistence that its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes, the United States and its European allies suspect the nation is developing nuclear weapons.

Iran will announce its views on the incentives package after it has been studied, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said.

"Nuclear weapons have no place in Iran's military and defense doctrine," he said, adding that "nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction are obstacles to international peace and security."

Ahmadinejad on Friday, 24 hours after the package was announced, told the Organization of the Islamic Conference in Tehran, "Certain parties that have stockpiles full of nuclear arms want to deprive us of our absolute rights," according to IRNA.

"Pressures to make us give up our rights will be (in) vain," he said. "If acquiring nuclear energy is not good, no country should benefit from it."(Watch as Iran's president refuses to back down -- 2:03)

On Thursday, the five veto-wielding members of the U.N. Security Council, along with Germany, agreed on a "set of far-reaching proposals."

While details will be kept secret until Iran has seen them, British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said the proposal will form the foundation for resuming talks with Iran.

The package still hinges on Iran halting its nuclear enrichment program. (Watch what will happen next if Iran does not agree -- 2:08)

"We believe that (the proposals) offer Iran the chance to reach a negotiated agreement based on cooperation," Beckett said.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran needs "to make a choice and the international community needs to know whether negotiation is a real option or not."

The incentive proposal followed Rice's meeting with foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia in Vienna, Austria, the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency.(Watch the U.S. strategy on Iran -- 2:23)

Iran ended its voluntary cooperation with the IAEA in February, which included ending surprise inspections of its nuclear facilities.

Rice said Iran must respond to the incentives offer in "a matter of weeks."

If Iran agrees to suspend its nuclear reprocessing and enrichment activities, potential Security Council actions against Tehran will be suspended, Beckett said. If Iran refuses, "further steps would have to be taken in the Security Council," she said without elaborating.

The announcement appears to mark the first time China and Russia have been on the same page as Washington regarding Iran's nuclear program.

Though the consequences of Iran refusing to halt enrichment weren't laid out, China and Russia's agreement to the deal is key.

The two countries have hesitated to call for sanctions on Iran in the past, and both could veto any Security Council resolution punishing Iran for refusing to stop its enrichment and reprocessing activities.

Thursday's incentives package came as former weapons inspector Hans Blix submitted a 225-page report to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan stating that Iran should stop its uranium enrichment program but that it probably will not.

"(Iranians) see 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq, and they see American bases in Pakistan and in Afghanistan, and more American military activities to the north of them," he said, adding that Iran remembers well the foreign-born coup of 1953 that ousted Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq.

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