International attention focused on the report as US President Barack Obama said "time is running out" for Iran to respond to a UN plan aiming to ease international fears that the Islamic Republic is working on a nuclear bomb.

Russia, meanwhile, announced that a controversial nuclear power plant it is building in Iran will not start operations by the end of 2009 as previously announced.

Ahmadinejad said the West would have to come to terms with Iran's nuclear progress, Iran's state broadcaster quoted the president as saying on his website.

"Enemies have politicised the nuclear issue using all of their abilities to try to make the Iranian nation surrender, but they have been defeated," Ahmadinejad said.

Nuclear cooperation with Iran is "beneficial to the Westerners because their opposition to it will make Iran stronger and more advanced," he added insisting that Iran's nuclear rights are "non-negotiable" and the research was being pursued "entirely under International Atomic Energy Agency supervision."

The IAEA sent its new report, having stated several times that Iran is not cooperating with UN Security Council demands, backed by three rounds of sanctions, that it halt uranium enrichment.

The new report will also give details of an October visit to an atomic site at Qom, that Iran had until recently kept secret.

Obama on Sunday won the strongest backing yet from Russian President Dmitry Medvedev over international frustration at Iran's failure to answer an offer to enrich uranium outside of Iran.

"Unfortunately, so far at least, Iran has been unable to say yes" to the proposal, Obama said after talks with Medvedev in Singapore. "We now are running out of time with respect to that approach."

Russia, which has the strongest ties with Tehran of any big power, has traditionally been unwilling to punish Iran with tough measures. But Medvedev said that Tehran risked sanctions if the crisis continued.

He said Moscow was "not completely happy about the pace" of efforts to resolve the crisis.

"In case we fail, the other options remain on the table, in order to move the process in a different direction," he said in a reference to new UN sanctions against Tehran.

Russia's Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said that the Bushehr nuclear plant would not now be ready this year, Russian news agencies reported. Shmatko insisted the delay was technical and the project would still go forward.

Russia, like the United States, is a veto-wielding UN Security Council permanent member, and its support is crucial if US warnings of tough sanctions are to carry weight.

Obama described as "fair" the proposal offered to Iran, which would see Russia lead an international consortium helping Tehran to further enrich uranium for a research reactor.

Referring to sanctions, he said that "we will begin to discuss and prepare for these other pathways" as Tehran could not be counted on to fulfil its international obligations.

The West suspects Tehran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon under cover of its civilian nuclear energy programme. Iran vehemently denies the claims while Russia has said there is no evidence to support the accusations.

IAEA Secretary General Mohamed ElBaradei, whose mandate finishes this month, is to chair his last board of governor's meeting on November 26, during which the new report will be discussed.

Iran will continue uranium enrichment and views Monday's report by the International Atomic Energy Agency as "repetitive," its envoy to the UN nuclear watchdog told Fars news agency.

"Iran will continue to exercise its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment," said Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh.

Soltanieh called on the IAEA's member states to "put an end to this repetitive and tedious path, as the reports by the (atomic) agency chief have nothing new."

The IAEA on Monday demanded more information from Iran on the purpose of a previously secret nuclear enrichment site and indicated that the Islamic republic could be hiding other facilities.

Uranium enrichment is at the centre of fears about Tehran's atomic programme as the process, which makes nuclear fuel, can also be used to make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

earlier related report
UN nuclear watchdog wants more answers from Iran
Vienna (AFP) Nov 16, 2009 - The UN atomic watchdog demanded Monday more information from Iran about the purpose of a previously secret nuclear site and indicated the Islamic republic could be hiding other facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency also said it had been told by Iran in a letter that a new site near the holy city of Qom should be operational in 2011, heightening fears Tehran is edging closer to developing a nuclear bomb.

"Iran's declaration of the new facility reduces the level of confidence in the absence of other nuclear facilities under construction and gives rise to questions about whether there were any other nuclear facilities in Iran which (have) not been declared to the agency," said the new IAEA report.

"Iran's explanation about the purpose of the facility and the chronology of its design and construction requires further clarification," it said, confirming that uranium enrichment activities continued despite UN sanctions.

Iran revealed to the IAEA in September that it had built a second uranium enrichment plant inside a mountain near Qom, triggering new outrage in the West over the nuclear drive, even though Iran denies it is trying to build a bomb.

US President Barack Obama said before Monday's IAEA report that Iran was "running out of time" to accept a deal whereby other nations would enrich its uranium.

Under the UN-backed deal, Iran would rely on Russia and France to process low-enriched uranium to fuel a Tehran reactor that makes medical isotopes.

The Islamic republic would be left without sufficient material to make a nuclear weapon, at least from stockpiles known to the international community.

Obama has been pursuing a stick-and-carrot approach on Iran, offering engagement at the same time as threatening sanctions, but US officials warned again Monday, after the IAEA report, that patience was wearing thin.

"Now is the time for Iran to signal that it wants to be a responsible member of the international community," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in a statement.

Iran has been enriching uranium for several years at a plant in the central city of Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions. Uranium is used for fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly enriched form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

In its first official report since IAEA experts inspected the Qom site last month, the watchdog said Tehran's delay in disclosure "does not contribute to the building of confidence."

The agency said it had acquired satellite images indicating some sort of construction work had taken place there between 2002 and 2004 and had resumed in 2006.

Iran said the site was planned as a back-up plant should the Natanz plant be bombed, for example, and work on turning it into such a facility began in the second half of 2007.

Even if that were true, the IAEA stated: "Iran's failure to notify the agency of the new facility until September 2009 was inconsistent with its obligations."

During the visit to the Qom site last month, IAEA inspectors verified that the plant "was built to contain 16 cascades with a total of approximately 3,000 (uranium-enriching) centrifuges," the report stated.

The Natanz plant currently has around 8,000 centrifuges installed.

No centrifuges had been installed in Qom, but the plant was "at an advanced stage of construction," the IAEA said, adding that Iran gave the inspectors "access to all areas of the facility."

The IAEA said it told Tehran it still had questions about how the facility fitted into Iran's nuclear programme and had requested access to the plant project manager and those responsible for its design.

Earlier in Tehran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reaffirmed that Iran's nuclear rights were "non-negotiable". He said the "enemies" of the nuclear programme had been defeated.

Tehran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Iran would continue uranium enrichment and dismissed the constant stream of IAEA reports as "repetitive and tedious."

"Iran will continue to exercise its right to peaceful use of nuclear energy, including enrichment," Soltanieh told Fars, Iran's semi-official news agency.

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