( AFP ) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned Wednesday that Iran would not give "even the slightest concession" in its atomic standoff with the West, ahead of a new round of talks with the EU on the crisis.
"They (the enemies) must know that Iran will not give the slightest concession... to any power," Ahmadinejad said in a speech broadcast live by state television.
"If they manage to take even a small concession from us, they will later seek other concessions by making threats," he said during a trip to the northern province of Ardebil.
Ahmadinejad's comments are his latest reaffirmation that Iran will not suspend uranium enrichment, a potential bomb-making process that is the key sticking point between Iran and world powers in the nuclear crisis.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's new nuclear pointman Saeed Jalili are due to meet next week to discuss Tehran's controversial atomic drive, Iranian officials said.
Solana must report to the UN Security Council by the end of November on Tehran's willingness to comply with the council's demand to freeze uranium enrichment.
He has tried to convince Tehran to resume talks on suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for a package of political and economic incentives but Tehran has refused to offer concessions.
Iran has already been slapped with two sets of UN sanctions over its defiance.
"We believe that nuclear energy is our nation's right and today this energy is at our disposal," a defiant Ahmadinejad said. "No one can take it from us."
Washington accuses Tehran of using its programme as cover for a drive to develop an atomic bomb, a charge the Iran strongly denies, saying it wants only to generate electricity.