"There's a body of law and procedures and regulations that govern nuclear programmes. Iran is simply ignoring those. There have got to be consequences for that," Feltman said in an interview with AFP.

"The international community needs to be speaking with one voice to show Iran that there are consequences of that, and sanctions become part of this discussion."

Sanctions, however, were not the first choice of action for the United States, Feltman said on the sidelines of a Gulf security conference in Manama, Bahrain.

"The preferred choice is that Iran would restore international confidence through other means," said the assistant secretary of state.

"Had Iran, for example, shared all of its documentation, shared access to all the officials who were involved in the Qom (nuclear) enrichment facility, that would have been a step towards restoring confidence."

Iran, which is already enriching uranium in defiance of UN sanctions at a plant in Natanz, revealed in September it had been building a second uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom.

The disclosure of its existence triggered widespread outrage in the West, which suspects Iran is enriching uranium with an ultimate goal of using it to make atomic weapons, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.

While sanctions imposed on Iran have "not resulted in a change of Iranian behaviour," they have had an impact by raising the cost of business in the country, said Feltman, who was appointed to his post in August.

"It's something that has got to make some Iranian policy makers think twice about the way they're going," he said.

Feltman said any deal reached between Iran and the permanent five members of the UN Security Council plus Germany would not be at the expense of Gulf states.

"It's a real concern (for Gulf countries) that somehow, the P5+1 will come to an agreement with Iran on its nuclear programme that comes at the expense of the Gulf. I assure you, that's not the case," he said.

Feltman added he would take a proposal by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed for official Gulf involvement in future Iran nuclear talks to Washington for discussion.

In remarks at the sixth Manama Dialogue conference on Saturday, Sheikh Khaled criticised the UN-led talks on the Iranian nuclear issue as they have not involved Middle Eastern countries.

"If there will be a talk about solving this issue, we would like to share our concerns," Sheikh Khaled said. "I think we should redo the talks with involvement from the region."

The United States dismissed an Iranian offer on Saturday to swap 880 pounds (400 kilograms) of low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel in an exchange on the island of Kish.

It instead called on Tehran to take up an existing proposal brokered by the International Atomic Energy Agency during the latest round of the negotiations.

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