The foreign ministry also said that a compromise proposal from Russia to end the nuclear standoff was now "off the agenda" but subsequently clarified its position to say that the plan was still negotiable.

Iran's nuclear programme, which Tehran says is a drive for peaceful energy but is alleged by the United States to be a cover for weapons production, is due to be discussed on the UN Security Council next week amid the looming threat of sanctions.

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki threatened that Iran could quit the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which governs the peaceful use of nuclear energy, if its atomic rights were not acknowledged.

"If we reach a point where the existing mechanisms do not provide for the right of the Iranian people, then the policies of the Islamic Republic of Iran would be possibly revised and reconsidered," Mottaki told reporters, in response to a question over whether Iran would consider leaving the NPT.

"At the moment we believe that there is a chance for different sides to continue the negotiations," he added on the sidelines of an international conference on energy and security in Asia.

Meanwhile there was confusion over the future of a Russian compromise proposal under which Iran would conduct its sensitive uranium enrichment activities -- the key sticking point -- on Russian soil.

Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi told reporters that the suggestion was off the table now that the case was in the hands of the Security Council.

However Asefi later told public television that the Russian compromise proposal on its nuclear programme can still be negotiated, as long as it acknowledges Iran's right to enrich uranium on home soil.

"As for the Russian proposal, if it considers Iran's right to conduct (nuclear) research on its soil, it can be a topic of negotiation, because the right to conduct research in Iran is the Islamic republic's right that we neither want to give up nor will do," he said.

Asefi also went on to say that Iran would never comply with any UN Security Council resolution ordering it to suspend uranium enrichment.

When asked what the Islamic republic would do if any UN Security Council resolution ordered it to suspend uranium enrichment, Asefi said: "Never." He did not elaborate.

Although Tehran has proposed suspending industrial-scale enrichment, it is refusing to halt enrichment research -- but Western powers argue that even this would allow the clerical regime to acquire nuclear weapons know-how.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has sent an assessment report on Iran's programme to the Security Council after a failed three-year-old probe to confirm the true nature of Iran's activities.

On Friday, the five veto-wielding members of the UN Security Council held another round of private talks on how to respond to Iran's nuclear defiance ahead of an expected meeting by the full 15-member council next week.

The Council, which unlike the IAEA has the power to impose sanctions and can even authorize military action, is first expected to endorse demands that Tehran halt uranium enrichment -- a reactor fuel-making process that can be extended to weapons development.

Iran -- OPEC's second biggest oil producer -- has been sending mixed messages over whether it would use its oil exports as a weapon in the case of action from the UN Security Council.

Mottaki insisted Iran would remain a reliable energy supplier, a day after the interior minister issued a new warning on Iranian oil exports.

"The Islamic republic of Iran is determined to be a reliable and effective energy supplier for Asian countries and not to use oil to implement its foreign policy," Mottaki said.

However, Iranian media reported apparently contradictory reMarks from Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi that suggested Iran could use oil as a weapon if it was hit by economic sanctions over its nuclear programme.

"We have energy, we have both our big consumer Market and that of the region, and we have control over the biggest and the most sensitive energy route in the world," said Pour-Mohammadi Saturday.

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Ex-Weapons Inspector Says It May Be Too Late To Stop Iran
Washington (AFP) Mar 13 - A former top UN and US arms inspector on Iraq said Sunday it may be too late to stop a nuclear-weapons determined Iran, noting that there is no consensus on taking military action against Tehran.

"I'm afraid that we probably are past the point where there is any meaningful alternative other than military action to stop the Iranians if they are determined to go ahead. And I don't see that as a possibility," said David Kay, who led the US search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq following the 2003 invasion.

"My great fear is indeed we will have to learn to live with Iran, and all its terrorist connections, with the bomb," Kay told NBC television's "Today Show" on Sunday, while declining to say for certain that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.

Kay ran the Iraq Survey Group that concluded that Iraq had no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, even as the White House continued to insist that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had been a growing threat at the time of the US invasion.

Calling the Tehran regime "toxic," Kay said on Sunday that the tensions over Iran's nuclear power program -- which the US believes masks an intention to develop atomic weapons -- differ from those which preceded the US attack on Iraq.

"This time we have a far more united multilateral coalition against Iran and we actually have the International Atomic Energy Agency condemning Iran for 18 years of cheating on its nonproliferation obligations," he said.

However, Kay said, the coalition is far from agreed on the actions to take against an Iraq that has rejected pressures to shut down its uranium enrichment program, which it claims is for peaceful purposes.

Kay said Europeans in the coalition were particularly bothered by aggressive statements from US leaders threatening tough UN sanctions or worse against Iran.

"When you've got in Tehran a regime that is toxic in the extreme, you really don't need to make the point that there are serious consequences. Everyone knows where we are moving," he said.

Kay, who was the chief UN weapons inspector from 1983 to 1992, would not say for certain that Iran was seeking to build nuclear weapons.

"Intentions -- that's always the weakest link in intelligence, and it certainly is in this case," he said.

"What you can say right now is Iran has taken a number of steps that are preparatory to having a nuclear weapon. You cannot say that in fact they definitively made that decision to go ahead with that weapons program."

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