Tehran, Iran ? Iran’s hard-line president scolded Europeans on Sunday, accusing them of being willing to sell their goods to Iranians while at the same time trying to strangle Tehran’s nuclear program.

Some legislators, meanwhile, criticized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Cabinet nominees, with one lawmaker asserting that the new president’s proposed government had autocratic leanings.

In a speech to parliament, Ahmadinejad did not name any European country but was clearly alluding to Britain, France and Germany – Iran’s largest European trading partners. They referred Iran to the U.N. nuclear watchdog this month after Tehran announced it was resuming uranium processing.

The trio had been negotiating with Iran on behalf of the European Union and the United States in an effort to persuade Tehran to shutter its program for uranium conversion.

Ahmadinejad said Europeans should be thankful Iranians import their products, but instead they “apply hostile policies against Iran and do not recognize our legitimate rights” – a reference to Iran’s right to a peaceful atomic program under the treaty.

“What kind of balance is this? This is cruel and unfair. Our nation will not tolerate such behavior on the international scene,” he said.

As parliament began debating Ahmadinejad’s proposed Cabinet, conservative lawmaker Emad Afrough lambasted the nominee for interior minister, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, describing the former intelligence official as a leading religious hard-liner.

While the hard-line dominated parliament is expected to approve the Cabinet list, the criticism showed divisions within the conservative camp. Some legislators who backed Ahmadinejad in the June elections clearly thought he had not chosen the best team to govern.

All but one of the nominees are hard-liners. Three are former members of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite unit in which Ahmadinejad served as a commander.

The debate on the Cabinet nominees was expected to last until Thursday.