Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran will not relinquish its right to have a civilian nuclear energy program despite the West's pressure, Press TV reported.
Ahmadinejad made the remarks at a press conference in Tehran on Tuesday. Asked if the Islamic Republic would retreat from its nuclear energy program in the face of Western pressure, Ahmadinejad told local and foreign reporters, "The Iranian nation and I will never back down."
"Keep in mind that it's a battle. The enemy imagines that it can shatter the [will of] the Iranian nation by exerting such pressures and they may even make new decisions," he noted, adding that the nation would eventually overcome the pressure.
At the beginning of 2012, the United States and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran's oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.
The sanctions came into force in early summer 2012.