Iran to present major nuclear projects 'in days'

A defiant Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday to inaugurate "important nuclear projects" within days and lashed out at Israel, saying the "story" of the Holocaust underpinning its existence had been "smashed".

In a speech marking the anniversary of Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution,

Ahmadinejad said his nation will "never yield" to Western sanctions and threats of military action from Israel and the United States.

A crowd of an estimated 30,000 people in Tehran's main Azadi (Freedom) Square cheered Ahmadinejad's words despite the winter weather. Many, including exuberant high school students, held aloft placards declaring 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel'.

In pointed messages aimed at those two arch-foes, Iranian officials planted a full-scale model of a US spy drone captured in December at an entrance to the square, and hosted on the stage the Hamas prime minister of Gaza.

Hamas "will never recognise Israel," Gaza leader Ismail Haniya told the crowd just before Ahmadinejad spoke. His remarks were likely to complicate efforts to form with rival party Fatah a Palestinian unity government in the face of strong opposition from the Jewish state, which views Hamas as a terrorist organisation armed by Iran.

Ahmadinejad gave no details about the "important nuclear projects" about to be made public. However, the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), has already said Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent -- a level significantly closer to military-grade 90 percent purity -- at a mountain bunker near the Shiite shrine city of Qom.

And Iranian officials have said that they will be inserting their first domestically made 20-percent enriched fuel plate into a Tehran research reactor by March.

Both developments have unsettled the West and Israel, which suspect Iran is pursuing research into nuclear weapons despite its repeated denials.

- AFP