Iranian factions battle over nation's nuclear program

Iran's controversial nuclear program is the latest battleground being fought over by the country's fierce political foes -- the powerful, yet unelected hardliners and reformists who back Iran's popularly elected president.

Hardliners, who have railed against the US-led assault on Iran's atomic agenda, want Iran to reject an Oct. 31 UN deadline to prove its nuclear program is peaceful. They are also calling for Iran to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Reformists, however, are pressing for Tehran to comply with international demands and sign an additional protocol under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty to allow for further UN inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities.

The standoff is expected to further erode reformist President Mohammad Khatami's grip on power, while playing into the hands of powerful hardline clerics that support Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters.

Khatami's reformists are expected to be left with little room to move if hardliners maintain opposition to growing international calls -- led by America -- to open the country's nuclear program.

Concerns that Iran may be developing a nuclear weapon have also brought a rare alignment between America, Europe and Russia.

On Saturday, US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin -- whose country has been the main foreign contributor to Iran's nuclear program -- jointly called on Tehran to show openness.

"We share a goal and that is to make sure that Iran doesn't have any nuclear weapon or a nuclear weapons program," Bush said at a press conference alongside Putin at Camp David.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, who heads the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee in Iran's parliament, warned in remarks published on Saturday that Iranian procrastination on the nuclear issue was harming the country and forging international consensus against it.

"I think our policy of procrastination over the nuclear issue is not correct," said Mirdamadi, a close Khatami ally.

"Our behavior has effectively brought Europe and the United States, which have had different positions, closer together. We are gradually creating an unprecedented global consensus against ourselves," he told the reformist daily Yas-e-Nou.

But hardliner Hossein Shariatmadari said Iran could not be forced to accept the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and should withdraw from it altogether. He also said Iran should ignore the Oct. 31 deadline and restrict access to its nuclear facilities.

"The deadline is illegal and a threat to our national sovereignty," Shariatmadari said on Saturday.