Ahmadinejad says West still untrustworthy over Iran talks

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on yesterday Iran still distrusts Western powers when it comes to holding talks, but that he also hopes the nuclear dialogue between the two sides will continue.

His comments came after the White House warned that US President Barack Obama will not wait forever for Tehran's response to a UN-drafted deal to supply Iran with nuclear fuel in exchange for its low-enriched uranium (LEU).

Two influential senior Iranian lawmakers said yesterday they opposed the deal, raising the possibility that Tehran may turn down the proposed deal. Main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi also came out against it.

"The best way for you is to respect the Iranian nation and cooperate honestly with this nation," Ahmadinejad said at a function in northeastern Iran, addressing Western powers, the official IRNA news agency reported.

He said Iran approaches the talks with Western powers over Tehran's nuclear programme with a sense of distrust, because of what he called their past "negative record".

"We hope the negotiations continue and evil powers don't indulge in mischief because the Zionist regime and other domineering powers are unhappy with the talks," he told a local television channel in the northeast late last Friday.

"The government, like all Iranian people, looks at the negotiations with no trust, given the negative record of Western powers."

Ahmadinejad appeared to return to his traditional anti-West rhetoric after a positive comment last Thursday that "conditions were ready" for nuclear cooperation between Iran and world powers.

Western powers are awaiting a clear response from Tehran over the nuclear fuel deal brokered by UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

France has said that under the deal 1,200 kilos of Iranian LEU - enriched at a facility in Natanz in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions - would be shipped abroad for further processing and conversion into fuel for a Tehran research reactor.