sponsored cease-fire in Lebanon that barred any weapons supplies to Hezbollah, the Associated Press reported. Annan, who flew into Tehran Saturday for a visit also dominated by the country's nuclear program, started by meeting with Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. «I am very happy to be here in Tehran, to discuss implementation of resolution 1071, which deals with the situation in Lebanon. I will also expect to discuss issues of concern in this region to the international community,» Annan told reporters after his arrival. Annan, who is on a tour of the crisis-wracked Middle East, is expected to seek Tehran's support for U.N. resolution 1071 that halted the 34-day Israeli-Hezbollah fighting on Aug. 14 and that also called for a beefed-up U.N. force of 15,000 troops to deploy in the south to enforce the peace. In Tehran, Annan will meet top officials including Ahmadinejad, Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani as well as Mottaki. State radio said that the U.N. chief would hold talks with the Iranian president on Sunday morning. Just ahead of Annan's arrival, Ahmadinejad vowed Saturday his country would forge ahead with its nuclear program despite U.S. pressure, state-run television reported. «Hyperbole against Iran's peaceful nuclear activities by Western countries especially the U.S. will continue,» the broadcast quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. «But the resistance and awareness of this nation will defuse all these plots.» «Avaricious powers can't create any obstacles on the way to the progress of our nation,» Ahmadinejad told a crowd in the town of Miandoab in northwestern Iran.
