"We hope that our Iranian friends can adopt a position that will help ease tensions and resume negotiations," Lavrov said at the start of a meeting with Mekhdi Savari, a deputy foreign minister and Iran's special envoy on Caspian Sea regional security issues.

Lavrov said contacts between Russia and Iran were ongoing and "intensive" and said Moscow was committed to further developing bilateral relations with the Islamic republic with a view, shared by both sides, to boosting regional security and cooperating on other issues.

Those issues, he said, ranged from the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East to fighting illegal drug trafficking.

Lavrov's comments came as Tehran's nuclear negotiator warned in a newspaper interview published Monday that Iran would carry out uranium enrichment on an industrial scale if the debate over its nuclear program is transferred to the UN Security Council.

The UN nuclear watchdog is due to hold an emergency meeting on February 2 to decide how to proceed in handling international concerns over Iran's nuclear program.

Those concerns were heightened earlier this month after Iran announced it was suspending a voluntary moratorium and resuming sensitive nuclear research work.

Western countries suspect Iran wants to build nuclear weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear power program, a charge Tehran denies.

A week ago Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also vowed his country would not back down over sensitive nuclear work.

Moscow has proposed a joint venture with Tehran to enrich uranium on Russian soil for an Iranian nuclear plant Russia is building to allay fears about Iran's program.

Iran snubbed the idea but the head of Russia's atomic energy agency, Sergei Kiriyenko, said Friday that "Iranian partners", whom he did not name, were due to visit in the coming days for talks about the plan.

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