Iran president calls atomic policy critics "traitors"

By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday denounced as "traitors" Iranian politicians who want the country to suspend its nuclear work, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Iranian reformists and some senior clerics have challenged Ahmadinejad's hard-line nuclear policy, blaming him for the imposition of tougher United Nations and U.S. sanctions in response to Tehran's atomic work.

Reformists believe Iran should return to a suspension of uranium enrichment, the policy under Khatami, saying Ahmadinejad's nuclear policy was piling Western pressure on Tehran.

But Ahmadinejad repeated that Iran had no intention of giving up its nuclear programme, which the West fears is a front to build bombs. Tehran says its atomic programme is a peaceful project to generate electricity.

"These people (who call for a change of nuclear policy) are traitors and based on our pact with the nation we will not back down," Ahmadinejad said in a speech at Tehran's Elm Va Sanat technical university.

"If they do not give up their pressures on (the government) over the atomic issues, we would expose them to the Iranian nation."

Iran's leading reformist parties and leaders, including reformist former president Mohammad Khatami, have warned of an escalating crisis with the international community, calling for a review of nuclear policy.

Speculation is growing that President George W. Bush could launch military action before he leaves office in January 2009, even though Washington says it is committed to resolving the crisis over Iran's disputed atomic ambitions diplomatically.