Iran says any new sanctions will not stop atomic work

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will not halt its disputed nuclear work because of any new U.N. sanctions, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying on Wednesday, a day after world powers agreed on the outlines of a new resolution.

"The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will continue with it," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the students news agency ISNA as saying.

"Such illegal behavior ... will not divert the Iranian nation from its path (to obtain nuclear technology)."

World powers agreed on Tuesday on the outlines of a third sanctions resolution against Iran, but diplomats said the draft did not contain the punitive economic measures that Washington had been pushing for.

Ahmadinejad called on the major powers to avoid repeating past "mistakes."

"We advise them not to repeat their previous mistakes ... They can not make up for the past with a new mistake," the official IRNA news agency quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.

The West has been engaged in a diplomatic showdown with Iran since 2002 and the U.N. Security Council has already imposed two sets of sanctions, in December 2006 and March 2007.

Washington has spearheaded a drive for new sanctions and had been pushing for a new resolution to impose a ban on business with leading Iranian state banks.

But that drive appears to have failed. Russia and China, both commercial partners of Iran, have hardened their opposition to tough sanctions since a U.S. intelligence report last month said Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003.

"NOT TOUGH"

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in Berlin on Tuesday after a nearly two-hour meeting with his counterparts from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, that the new draft of a sanctions resolution would be presented to the U.N. Security Council in the coming weeks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the new draft resolution was not tough or punitive and "welcomes the progress made between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) ..."

"The measures in this draft do not have a tough sanctioning character," Lavrov said.

He said the new draft resolution would "call on countries to be alert in their transport relations with Iran so that those relations are not used to transport (potentially dangerous) materials".

His remarks suggested the United States failed to win agreement in Berlin on punitive economic sanctions against Iran.

Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Tehran had exceeded its international obligations on its nuclear dossier.

"Iran has gone beyond its obligations," Saeed Jalili told a committee of the European Parliament during a visit to Brussels. He was expected to meet European Union Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana in the Belgian capital later on Wednesday.

"Everyone acknowledges those activities are peaceful," Jalili, referring to Iran's nuclear activities. He reiterated Tehran's belief that Iran had a right to enrich uranium.

IAEA director Mohamed ElBaradei won agreement from Iran this month to answer remaining questions about its past covert nuclear work within four weeks.

Western diplomats say expectations are low that leaders in Tehran will be forthcoming, but Iran says it has accelerated its cooperation with the IAEA since then. Ahmadinejad said Iran had "good" cooperation with the agency.

"No one aside from the agency has the right to interfere in Iran's nuclear issue. No one can threaten us or impose something on Iran," IRNA quoted Ahmadinejad as saying.