Iran vows no retreat on nuclear program

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed on Wednesday a report from the United Nations' nuclear agency that highlighted concerns Tehran had worked on designing an atomic bomb, saying it was based on "invalid" information from Washington.    

"You should know that this nation will not pull back even a needle's width from the path it is on," he said in a speech carried live on state television.

"Why do you damage the agency's dignity because of America's invalid claims?" he said, apparently addressing members of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran's envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spoke to the media on Tuesday, following the IAEA report.

Ali Ashgar Soltanieh rejected the accusation and called the UN atomic agency's report biased.    

He further accused the IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano of conspiring with the United States in the release of this latest report after his recent visit to Washington, DC.     

"It is not fair, it is unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and political pressure by the United States," Soltanieh told reporters in Vienna, where the IAEA is headquartered.    

Soltanieh continued to say that all nuclear activities in Iran were exclusively for peaceful purposes, and that Iran would continue to cooperate with the IAEA as it had in the past.

-AP