(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-17 14:15

TEHRAN -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday described the US accusation of Iran nuke program as a mistake, urging Washington to admit the mistakes, local media reported.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaks with journalists after a session in parliament in Tehran, November 14, 2007. [Agencies]

Ahmadinejad made the remarks in his reaction to a just-released nuclear report by the UN atomic watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which said Iran had made "substantial progress" in cooperation with it.

"You (the US) now have found your information was wrong" and "it's time for you to be brave and come forward and say to the Iranian people we made a mistake," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying.

In the report over Tehran's cooperation on the nuclear program issued in Vienna Thursday, the IAEA said "Iran has made substantial progress in revealing the nature and extent of its disputed nuclear program".

But it also noted that Iran "had been keeping ignoring the UN demand of freezing its sensitive uranium enrichment work", calling on Tehran "to be more pro-active in providing information."

While praising the IAEA report issued by its chief Mohammad ElBaradei, the Iranian president said that "it (the report) was relative realistic and to a great extent free from the pressure of some big powers."

Earlier on Thursday, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said the IAEA report has proved the country's nuclear program is "peaceful" and the pursuit of new sanctions against the Islamic Republic would be "wrong".

The UN Security Council has issued two sanction resolutions against Tehran's nuclear program since last December. Iran up to now has denied the UN demand for freezing its sensitive enrichment work.

The White House, said immediately after the new IAEA report was released that it would push for new sanctions against Iran despite it showed partial cooperation between Tehran and IAEA in the past months.