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Iran Rejects Deadline to End Nuclear Work

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From the Associated Press

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad rejected a U.N. Security Council deadline for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, saying Tuesday that his country would not be pressured into stopping its nuclear program.

“If some think they can still speak with threatening language to the Iranian nation, they must know that they are badly mistaken,” Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

The Security Council passed a resolution Monday calling for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment by Aug. 31 or face the threat of economic and diplomatic sanctions.

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The U.S. has accused Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, though Tehran maintains its program is aimed at generating electricity.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the U.N. resolution had no legal foundation.

“It only pursues the political objectives of some countries,” Asefi said in a statement.

Iran’s ambassador to the U.N. rejected the resolution Monday, saying it would make negotiations more difficult on a Western incentives package offered to Iran in June in exchange for suspending enrichment.

Japan and Russia on Tuesday urged Iran to comply with the resolution. “We call on Iran to listen to the opinion of world society,” a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.

Because of Russian and Chinese demands, officials said, the Security Council resolution was changed from earlier drafts that would have made the threat of sanctions immediate. The resolution will require further council discussion before sanctions are considered.

The resolution passed 14 to 1, with the Persian Gulf nation of Qatar dissenting.

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