Ahmadinejad vows Iran will stick to nuclear plans

IRAN: Iran will stand by its right to obtain nuclear technology and anyone spreading propaganda against its atomic programme will come to regret it, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.

"No one can take away our nuclear technology. The Iranian nation has obtained it and will preserve it. Some are against the Iranian nation's development," he said in a televised address to mark the start of the Iranian year on March 21.

Ahmadinejad said Iran would resist efforts to undermine its nuclear programme just as it pursued the nationalisation of its oil industry last century against the wishes of Western powers "A while ago, they were against the nationalisation of our oil industry.

They were saying that this (oil) smelt bad and is useless and you don't need it. That day the Iranian nation resisted, and today they are saying the same things about nuclear energy," he said. "The Iranian nation will resist with God's help," he added.

Meanwhile Russia, backed by China, blocked agreement on a U.N. Security Council statement aimed at quashing Iran's nuclear ambitions despite a ministerial meeting on Tehran's atomic programs, diplomats said.

Senior foreign affairs officials from Germany and the five veto-holding Security Council members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - met for more than four hours to exchange information on how to handle Iran.

Their U.N. ambassadors joined them for discussions on a draft statement the Security Council has been unable to issue for nearly two weeks telling Iran to stop uranium-enrichment efforts the West believes are a cover for bomb making.

Still, Nicholas Burns, the U.N. undersecretary of state, told reporters after the meeting, "We remain convinced that we will see a presidential statement. It just may take a couple more days."

Both Russia and China are wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut all contact with the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Envoys close to the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Russia was toughest on provisions in a draft statement and that China backed Moscow.

France and Britain, authors of the draft statement, will take "another look at that text to see if we can refine it a little bit more," said Britain's U.N. ambassador Emyr Jones Parry, whose mission hosted the talks. Tehran, New York, Tuesday Reuters