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Tehran: Iran expects to have its own nuclear-generated electricity by this time next year and will not bow to Western pressure to halt uranium enrichment, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday.
Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the southern city of Bushehr that Iran was approaching the peak of its nuclear programme.
Iran's planned first nuclear power plant is sited close to Bushehr. The plant would begin test operations by late October, a senior official said yesterday, two days after Russia completed fuel deliveries to the site.
The West suspects Iran's nuclear activities are ultimately aimed at building weapons. Iran, the world's fourth-largest crude oil producer, says it only wants to generate electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.
World powers last week agreed the outline of a third UN sanctions resolution against Iran, calling for mandatory travel bans and asset freezes for specific Iranian officials and vigilance on banks in the country.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would not halt its disputed uranium enrichment work, technology which can have both civilian and military purposes.
"If you [the West] imagine that the Iranian nation will back down you are making a mistake," he said in a televised speech. "On the nuclear path we are moving towards the peak," he said without elaborating.
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