President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was on Wednesday under fire from moderates for inflaming the nuclear standoff with the West in a speech where he compared the Iranian nuclear programme to a runaway train.
Ahmadinejad on Sunday again defied UN demands for a freeze to sensitive nuclear work in the most graphic language, proclaiming the atomic drive was a "train on a one-way track with no room for stopping, reverse gear or braking."
"Ahmadinejad's statements, such as the 'nuclear train having no brakes', neutralises other officials' efforts and makes the enemies more determined in their decisions," reformist MP Ghodratollah Alikhani was quoted as saying by the Etemad Melli newspaper.
"They speed up the adoption of a harsher resolution against Iran," he said, referring to the looming threat of a second UN Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran's nuclear drive.
Fellow reformist MP Esmail Gerami Moqaddam told Ahmadinejad to copy the more measured language used on foreign visits by chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani and adviser to the supreme leader Ali Akbar Velayati.
"Today, we'd better talk in the reasonable language of Velayati and Larijani and not move in a direction desired by the enemies with sensationalist slogans and adventurism," he told Etemad Melli.
{{/usCountry}}"Today, we'd better talk in the reasonable language of Velayati and Larijani and not move in a direction desired by the enemies with sensationalist slogans and adventurism," he told Etemad Melli.
{{/usCountry}}"The Iranian people and the Islamic republic do not deserve such language. Having no brakes means that decisions made by Ahmadinejad are exclusive and he does not accept any consultation," the MP added.