http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/world ... 7iran.html
The confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program appeared to deepen Tuesday as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton escalated her verbal assault during a Persian Gulf visit and Russia joined the United States and France in bluntly questioning Iran’s ultimate intentions in enriching uranium.
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“You have to ask yourself: why are they doing this?” Mrs. Clinton said. Referring to Iran’s insistence that it is not seeking nuclear weapons, she said, “The evidence doesn’t support that.”
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At a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday, reports said, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reiterated that Iran was ready to suspend enrichment if it could exchange its low-enriched uranium stockpile for processed fuel rods from abroad. But he said the swap should be “simultaneous” — a demand already dismissed by the United States and its allies.
“We are still ready for an exchange, even with America,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said, according to Reuters.
Mrs. Clinton’s comments seemed to amplify the verbal sparring that began Monday when she said Iran was drifting toward a military dictatorship with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps gathering ever greater political, military and economic power.
By way of a response, the Iranian foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, said Tuesday that America itself answered to the description of a military dictatorship.
And as the exchanges intensified on Tuesday, Russia also entered the debate about Washington’s campaign to secure stricter sanction against Iran, saying penalties could not be ruled out if Iran did not persuade world powers that its intentions were peaceful.
Russia also joined the United States and France in signing a letter to the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, asserting that Iran’s uranium enrichment and its failure to notify the I.A.E.A. beforehand were “wholly unjustified, contrary to U.N. Security Council resolutions, and represent a further step toward a capability to produce highly enriched uranium.”
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Iran has reacted sharply to the latest American criticism.
Mr. Mottaki “raised questions about the United States military dictatorship in the region,” the English-language broadcaster Press TV said on Tuesday, and accused Washington of practicing “modern deceit,” using “fake words” to disguise its intentions in the Persian Gulf area.
“We are regretful that the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tries to conceal facts about the stance of the U.S. administration through fake words,” Press TV quoted him as saying.
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He also accused Washington of interfering in the internal affairs of other states by undermining their “scientific and technological achievements,” an apparent reference to Iran’s nuclear program which Iran says is for peaceful purposes permitted under international law.
“Those who have been the very symbol of military dictatorships over the past decades, since the Vietnam war until now, see everyone else in the same way,” The Associated Press quoted Mr. Mottaki as saying. Mrs. Clinton’s current visit to the region, he said, was “overflowing with contradictions and incorrect actions.”
