Ahmadinejad: I'll talk with US if pressure stops

         
Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that he is ready to have talks with United States if the West stops pressuring his country, the latest in a series of hints from leaders in both Washington and Tehran about the prospect of direct bilateral negotiations over the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program.                          

"You pull away the gun from the face of the Iranian nation, and I myself will enter the talks with you," Ahmadinejad said at a ceremony marking the 34th anniversary of the 1979 revolution that toppled a Western-backed monarch and ushered in the Islamic Republic.                      

He said the West had recently taken a "better" tone toward Iran a nod to statements made by Vice President Joe Biden last week, in which he said the United States was prepared talk directly to Iran. But the Iranian president said this was not enough.                    

"The Iranian nation will not give up one iota of its rights," Ahmadinejad said. "Your efforts had aimed at preventing us from become nuclear, but we did."       

However Ahmadinejad admitted that sanctions have taken a bite. "Today, because of dishonorable pressure by enemies, people are under pressure. The government is concerned about the uneasy situation of a big portion of the country."


AP