"This is a sensitive issue. We can not give up our rights, No Iranian will be ready to give up our rights, and they should know that we will remain firm," Iran’s former influential president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said.
"With wisdom we will get our rights, and if they create any trouble for us, they will regret it in the end, and Iran will emerge triumphant," said Rafsanjani, who heads the Expediency Council, Iran’s top political arbitration body.
Iran on Tuesday announced the end of a two-year suspension of nuclear fuel research, escalating the long-running stand-off with the West over its nuclear program.
The move drew condemnation from the United States and the European Union and other countries around the world amid concerns that Iran could be seeking to build an atomic bomb.
International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei, who has complained he was "losing patience" with Iran’s lack of transparency, said Tehran also planned to use centrifuges to enrich uranium "on a small scale."
"After yesterday afternoon’s announcement, we witnessed a huge wave of unjust aggression against Iran in the West’s political, military and economic circles of the West," said Rafsanjani, who was president from 1989 to 1997.
Rafsanjani reiterated the Islamic republic’s position that its nuclear program is strictly civilian.
"During the worst situation that we were under chemical weapons attack, we did not use such inhumane weapons. We are not seeking nuclear weapons," he said, referring to the the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88.
"By attacking us they want to keep us underdeveloped."
Iranians gathered at Tehran university campus for Rafsanjani’s speech marking the Muslim feast of Eid Al-Adha chanted the habitual "Death to America, and Death to Israel."
Iran had agreed to suspend uranium enrichment activities pending negotiations with the European Union on economic and other incentives to renounce any nuclear weapons ambitions.
The European Union, which described Iran’s latest move as "serious and regrettable," has been trying to reopen talks suspended in August after Iran rejected an initial set of incentives to abandon uranium enrichment, which produces fuel for nuclear power reactors but can also be used to make atomic bombs.
Iran’s stance has hardened since President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad took office in August.
Earlier this week, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Iran would not give up its nuclear program, and that any UN sanctions would not deter the will of the people.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that if Iran breaches its international obligations, "there’s no other choice" but to refer the matter to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
President George W. Bush’s spokesman said the US leader has "made it pretty clear" that he has no plans to use military force against Iran, although "he never takes options off the table."
The European Union said Iran’s move was "continuously eroding international confidence in the peaceful nature of its nuclear program and is of serious concern to the entire international community."
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw expressed "profound concern" over Tuesday’s development and left the door open to referring Tehran to the Security Council.
Straw said the EU-3 — Britain, France and Germany — plan to meet Thursday to discuss Iran’s action and that possible referral to the Security Council would be at the "top of the agenda".