Iran declared today that threats to send its nuclear case to the UN Security Council would not make it drop its quest for peaceful nuclear technology.
The statement by President Mohammad Khatami came after US officials expressed growing confidence that international resolve was hardening to deal with Iran's nuclear programme and report it to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.
Iran has angered Britain, Germany and France - who have sought to broker a diplomatic solution to Tehran's nuclear case - by restarting parts of its nuclear programme and refusing to abandon efforts to master uranium enrichment.
Washington says Iran wants to enrich uranium to bomb-grade levels. Tehran says it only wants to make low-grade enriched uranium for use in nuclear power reactors.
"We don't want our case to be sent to the United Nations. We hope to resolve the issue through justifications and explanations," Mr Khatami told reporters.
"But if anyone wants to deprive us of our right (to peaceful nuclear technology) we and our nation would be ready to pay the price," he added.
Iran's claim that it has no intention of building nuclear arms was given a boost on Tuesday by reports that UN nuclear inspectors had traced highly enriched uranium particles found in Iran to equipment bought from Pakistan.
This supports Iran's stance that the uranium samples, including some of bomb-grade level, were caused by contamination.
"We haven't done any enrichment in Iran. The parts were contaminated," Mr Khatami said.
Diplomats in Tehran said Washington would probably push hard to include a trigger mechanism to send Iran's case to the U.N. Security Council in any resolution adopted by the next meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency in September.