TEHRAN, Iran - Iran on Wednesday dismissed a UN report that inspectors found new traces of enriched uranium and plutonium at a nuclear waste facility, saying it had already explained that discovery.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, waves to the media, during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, Nov. 14, 2006. Ahmadinejad on Tuesday said Iran would soon celebrate completion of its controversial nuclear fuel program. [AP]

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted the West will gradually back down in its standoff with Iran and eventually accept its nuclear program.

"While the West tries to thwart the progress of our nation, time is on our side," Ahmadinejad told a crowd in Sanandaj, the capital city of Iran's Kurdistan province. "They would have to take one step back with every passing day and approve the right of the Iranian people."

Oil-rich Iran has claimed it has a right to a nuclear program it says is aimed at producing energy. But the United States suspects Tehran has ambitions to make nuclear weapons.

Ahmadinejad's comments came a day after an International Atomic Energy Agency report said its experts have found unexplained plutonium and highly enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran. Both materials can be used in building a nuclear warhead, though one UN official said the uranium was not enriched to weapons-grade level.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the parliamentary committee on National Security and Foreign Policy, called the report "an old story."

"This is an old story and contains no new points," Boroujerdi told the official Islamic Republic News Agency on Wednesday. "Iran has submitted a comprehensive report on the issue to the IAEA. It will be convincing."

Special coverage: Iran Nuke Issue  Related readings: Iran says to "resist to the end" on nuke issue Olmert urges Arab to unite against Iran

He did not elaborate on the source of the traces. Iran has said that previous traces of enriched uranium found by inspectors came from equipment that it bought from abroad without knowing of the contamination.

"What was mentioned in (IAEA chief Mohamed) ElBaradei's report are issues that Iran has already answered many times. Tehran, based on the safeguards, has fully cooperated with the IAEA," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini as saying.

1

2