Iran rejects US warning as nuke deadline nears

With arch-enemy Israel warning that Iran's uranium enrichment must be stopped for the sake of "world peace", a Thursday deadline neared for Iran to suspend the controversial nuclear activity or face possible sanctions.

US ambassador to the UN John Bolton has said that while Washington was confident of securing a UN consensus over Iran, it was prepared to act unilaterally if a resolution against Tehran was vetoed by Beijing and Moscow.

"Such statements are a blatant insult to the United Nations and the Security Council. They stem from bullying and a lack of principles," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters.

Bolton told the Los Angeles Times newspaper late last week that "everybody's been on board" on the Security Council over Iran but in case Russia and China did not accept any resolution, the United States was working on a parallel diplomatic track.

"You don't need Security Council authority to impose sanctions, just as we have," Bolton said, referring to the raft of economic sanctions the United States imposed on Tehran in the wake of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Elham scoffed that the comments showed "such people do not deserve to be a member to this council and the organization should reconsider to save its reputation and show it is not an instrument in their hands.

"The ones who sacrifice international law for their greed, dominance and unilateralism better be worried," he said.

The UN Security Council has given Iran an August 31 deadline to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities and an impasse looms with Iran insisting it has no intention of abandoning such work.

The Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is to issue a report on that date after verifying whether Tehran has complied with the deadline.

But Iran has also made clear it remains keen to hold talks with all the key players over its nuclear ambitions, including even its foe the United States.

"Iran is ready to hold discussions with the foreign ministers of the five permanent Security Council members and Germany, wherever and whenever," chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said late Sunday.