Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday rejected growing Western pressure to give a speedy response to a new proposal on Iranian nuclear issue, the state television reported.

 

"We have been living under oppressive conditions for 27 years, Iran will not suffer any more from incremental pressure," Ahmadinejad said when he met Britain's new ambassador to Tehran.

 

On June 21, the president said that Iran would formally respond in mid-August to the package aimed at solving the nuclear dispute.

 

However, western leaders said Iran wouldn't need such a long time to respond to the "reasonable deal", urging the country to accept the proposal in a few weeks or face international sanctions.

 

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi called Sunday on the Europeans and the US to be more patient over its formal response.

 

"We have to hold elevated discussions on the package, that's why we can not give a speedy response," he said.

 

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented the package backed by five permanent member states of the UN Security Council plus Germany to Iran on June 6.

 

The package includes incentives to encourage Iran to suspend uranium enrichment, a process the West says Iran is using to make atom bombs. But it also contains penalties if Iran, which insists on its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy, rejects the offer.

 

(Xinhua News Agency June 27, 2006)