Iran Rejects Demands To Freeze Nuclear Work, Warns UN

Iran on Thursday again rejected international demands it freeze its controversial nuclear program and warned the UN Security Council against choosing a ‘path of confrontation’. In a statement read on state television, nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani also said Iran would take until August 22 to reply to an international offer of incentives in exchange for a halt of uranium enrichment. But he also accused the United States, which has lumped Iran into an ‘axis of evil’, of trying to derail diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis. ‘According to the adopted plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of atomic energy over the next 20 years, the Islamic republic has decided to make some of its own nuclear fuel inside Iran,’ said the statement from Larijani, the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council.