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TEHRAN: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told his visiting Syrian counterpart on Saturday that although Iran welcomes talks on its controversial nuclear programme it will not budge an inch on its rights.
"We will take part in any negotiations and talk about any issue which consolidates our nuclear rights," the Iranian presidency website quoted Ahmadinejad as telling staunch regional ally President Bashar al-Assad.
"Iran will not give an inch on its nuclear rights," he added.
Assad's visit coincides with this weekend's US deadline for Iran to respond to an international package of incentives for it to freeze its drive to enrich uranium amid warnings of new sanctions if it does not.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino warned: "Negative consequences await if they don't have a positive response to our very generous incentives package, and that would possibly come in the form of sanctions."
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave Iran two weeks to come up with a "serious" reply after an international meeting in Geneva on July 19 which saw Tehran broadly accused of stonewalling.
Perino said the United States would coordinate any action with its partners in the P5-plus-1, or the permanent UN Security Council members - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - plus Germany.
The P5-plus-1 has offered Iran benefits in civil nuclear energy, trade, finance, agriculture and high technology if it freezes uranium enrichment.
If Iran accepts the package, there would be pre-negotiations during which Tehran would add no more uranium-enriching centrifuges and, in return, face no further sanctions.
The presidency website quoted Assad, on his third trip to Tehran since Ahmadinejad gained power in 2005, as saying that "Syria strongly stands by Iran and will not change its stance."
On the nuclear issue, Assad said: "We have told the Europeans that Syria believes that any country including Iran, and based on international treaties, has the right to enrich uranium and have a nuclear power plant."
The Syrian leader's visit follows a trip to Paris a month ago during which French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Syria to "persuade Iran" to prove that it is not seeking nuclear weapons.
Uranium enrichment to produce fuel for nuclear power plants can also be used to make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.
Ahmadinejad, who has earned notoriety for verbally attacking Israel, also told Assad whose country revived indirect talks with the Jewish state in May that Tehran's regional arch-foe is heading for annihilation.
"The Zionist regime has lost its raison d'etre, is no longer able to direct US and European policies in the region and is therefore naturally heading for annihilation," Ahmadinejad said.
Without being specific he said: "Some countries are wrong to try to create divisions between Iran and Syria which will always remain by each other's side."
Iran and Syria both support the Shiite Hezbollah-led opposition in Lebanon, while the parliamentary majority in Beirut is backed by the West.
Ahmadinejad also reiterated that Iran's arch-enemy the United States should withdraw from neighbouring Iraq.
"The US should start pulling out of Iraq, and any US administration which gets to power has to do it," he said, alluding to November's presidential election there.
Local media reported that Assad would also meet Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word on major issues, before returning to Damascus on Sunday.
The Iran-Syria alliance, stretching back more than three decades, was strengthened in 2006 with the signing of a military cooperation agreement.
State television said that Iran is currently involved in a range of projects in Syria valued at around 1.3 billion dollars. - AFP/de
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