Iran said today it was no longer considering a Russian compromise deal intended to overcome an international dispute over whether Tehran is seeking to build an atomic bomb.
Russia had proposed making nuclear fuel for Iran to ensure uranium was enriched only to the low level needed for power stations.
But Iran was unwilling to surrender its right to enrich uranium on its own soil. The failure of the Russian compromise helped send Iran's case to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said Tehran was not considering reprising the Russian plan. "Now the situation has changed, the Russian proposal is not on the agenda," he told reporters at a conference on energy and security in Tehran.
Russia's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mikhail Kamynin was quoted by the RIA news agency saying Moscow would weigh up the Iranian remarks and consider its position.
Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in Russia's State Duma parliament, was quoted by RIA saying Iran's stance could "radicalise the nature of the United Nations Security Council discussion".
But another news agency quoted a Russian source familiar with the talks saying Russia had withdrawn the proposal anyway.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reiterated Iran's official position, voiced by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month, that Iran could reconsider its stance if it felt it was being unfairly pressured. But he too stressed this would be an extreme resort.
"We prefer to use existing mechanisms and to have our rights from our more than 30-year membership of the NPT," he said.