French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said today Iran was pursuing a clandestine military nuclear programme.
"No civilian nuclear programme can explain the Iranian nuclear programme. So it is a clandestine Iranian military nuclear programme," Mr Douste-Blazy told France 2 television.
"The international community has sent a very firm message in telling the Iranians to return to reason and suspend all nuclear activity and the enrichment and conversion of uranium, but they aren't listening to us," he said.
Mr Douste-Blazy's comments come amid an international dispute over Iran's nuclear activities, which Tehran insists are purely civilian, but which European and US leaders fear are aimed at building nuclear weapons.
Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, responded with a warning to the West not to hector Tehran - a heated exchange that boded ill for talks in Moscow next week on a Russian compromise aimed at ending the row peacefully.
Russia has offered to enrich Iranian uranium on its soil and return it to Iran for use in atomic reactors, thereby easing international concerns Iran could produce bomb-grade uranium.
The UN nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently voted to report Iran's case to the UN Security Council, which could impose sanctions.
Iran confirmed on Monday that it had resumed small-scale uranium enrichment.
China today called for the diplomatic resolution of Iran's nuclear standoff, a day after the United States warned that Tehran was defying the international community by resuming uranium enrichment.
"We're extremely concerned about the status of the Iranian nuclear issue," a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said. "We support protecting the international anti-proliferation regime and advocate peaceful resolution of the Iran nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations."