Iran rejects Western bullying

Iran vowed yesterday not to compromise in its nuclear dispute with the West, and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tehran would not be bullied.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Iran was probably the number one challenge for Washington and would be a major threat to US Middle East interests if it acquired atomic bombs. Iran says its nuclear programme is only for civilian use.

Russia, anxious to avert any move to impose UN sanctions on Iran, urged Tehran to cooperate with UN nuclear inspectors.

Speaking a day after it became clear the UN Security Council would take up the Iran standoff, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - ultimate decision-maker in the Islamic Republic - urged officials not to give in to Western pressure.

"If the Iranian nation and government step back on nuclear energy today, the story will not end there and the Americans will make another pretext," Mr Khamenei told senior clerics.

But he also called for "wisdom and expediency" in handling the issue, a possible nod to faint internal criticism in Iran that Mr Ahmadinejad and other senior officials have antagonised the West with needlessly inflammatory statements.

"This nation... will not allow others to treat it with a bullying attitude, even if (they) are international bullies," Mr Ahmadinejad said in a speech in western Iran yesterday.

"They know they are not capable of inflicting the slightest blow on the Iranian nation because they need the Iranian nation. They will suffer more and they are vulnerable," he said.

Ms Rice said Tehran's vision of the Middle East was totally opposed to Washington's, reiterating concerns that Iran was backing anti-Israel militants and meddling in neighbouring Iraq.

She told a congressional hearing in Washington that the threat from Iran could grow exponentially.

"If you can take that and multiply it by several hundred, you can imagine Iran with a nuclear weapon and the threat they would then pose to that region," said Ms Rice.

"We may face no greater challenge from a single country." Officials from the UN Security Council's five permanent members - the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia - met on Wednesday to discuss strategy when the council takes up a UN dossier on Iran early next week.

Most diplomats expect the 15-nation council, which can impose sanctions, to issue a statement first urging Iran to comply with resolutions by the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) board that it halt all uranium enrichment activities.

The UN nuclear watchdog's board this week forwarded a report on Iran to the council for possible action.

"We call on Iran to examine the results of the (IAEA) board meeting in the most serious way possible and ensure full cooperation with the IAEA," Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its website.

A leading Iranian security official warned on Wednesday Iran could inflict "harm and pain" to match whatever punishment Washington persuaded the Security Council to mete out to Iran.

A senior British official described this as a veiled threat of violence. "It's a rhetorical threat at this stage but because Iran has a record of using violence in support of its foreign policy objectives we have to take it seriously," he said.

Some Iranian officials have hinted that if pressed or threatened, Iran could curb oil exports, or stir trouble for the United States or Israel in the region, where it has links with militants in Iraq, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.

Iran, which concealed its nuclear activities from the IAEA for 18 years, has striven to avoid being hauled before the Security Council. It says it is being singled out unfairly over its nuclear activities compared to India, Pakistan and Israel.

A senior UN official said it was vital to keep the focus on the principles of nuclear non-proliferation when the Security Council discusses Iran to avoid the sort of international divisions that marked the run-up to the Iraq war.

"The key thing is that the handling of the Iran issue should be seen to be fair, without the perception of double standards," UN deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown said in London.

"It will be a very tricky journey, with no obvious answers. There is no pre-cooked solution," he told reporters.