World pressure makes Iran more determined, says Ahmadinejad

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says world powers cannot stop Iran's progress. (AFP)

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday world pressure on the country, including talk of new sanctions, makes it more determined than ever to pursue its nuclear programme.

The show of defiance came after US President Barack Obama vowed to ratchet up global pressure on Tehran to abandon its atomic programme which he said indicated Iran was aiming for weapons capability.

Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi, meanwhile, said plans for the building of two new uranium enrichment plants had been submitted to Ahmadinejad.

"You [world powers] can cut your own throat, jump up or down, issue statements and declarations and pass resolutions... but don't think you can stop the progress and building of the Iranian nation," Ahmadinejad said.

"The more overt your animosity towards us, the more determined the Iranian nation will be to go forward," the hardline president said in a speech broadcast live on state television. He said Iran had started making its own nuclear fuel for a Tehran research reactor after world powers "did not" give the material to his country.

"Based on the law which you wrote in the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty] charter, you were supposed to give the fuel for the Tehran reactor, but you did not," he said.

"We said we will do it ourselves and they made fun, but our experts did it."