Britain, Germany and France "have tried their best, but we expected more from our European colleagues" Iranian ambassador Pirooz Hosseini told reporters at a meeting of the IAEA in Vienna. He was referring to a draft IAEA resolution that lists Iranian failures to report sensitive nuclear activities.

Hosseini said there was "too much pressure, unconstructive pressure, by the Americans".

The IAEA has been verifying since February 2003 whether Iran's nuclear program is peaceful, or devoted to secretly developing atomic weapons, as the United States maintains.

In Tehran, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said the Islamic Republic threatened to end cooperation with the IAEA unless it stopped being "influenced by the Americans".

"We are engaged in cooperation (with the IAEA) and for this to continue the cooperation has to be bilateral. If one side does not respect its obligations, the cooperation will end," Kharazai added after the Iranian government's weekly cabinet meeting.

In Brussels, the European Commission issued a veiled warning to Iran not to end cooperation with IAEA, noting that Europe's trade dialogue with Tehran was linked to the nuclear issue.

And IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei urged Iran not to renew its uranium enrichment activities, as Tehran had threatened to do earlier Wednesday.

"Iran has been in breach of its (nuclear non proliferation) obligations for many years and we need to build confidence," ElBaradei said.

"I think suspension (of uranium enrichment) is a confidence-building measure and, as I said, Iran needs to do everything possible right now to create the confidence required."

The IAEA's 35-nation board of governors is meeting in Vienna this week has not yet voted on the draft resolution on Iran.

But Hosseini said the text, drafted by the US and the three European states, was "an act of bullying and putting pressure on the others".

"This is against the statute of the IAEA and not fruitful anyway," he said.

The United States, which wants to take Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, agreed on a compromise text Tuesday with Britain, France and Germany, which have stressed the need to get Iran to cooperate with the international community over nuclear non-proliferation.

The compromise text, a copy of which was obtained by AFP, condemns Iran for failing to report such crucial technologies as advanced P-2 centrifuge designs for enriching uranium, possibly to weapons grade.

But it puts off any immediate reaction, such as declaring Iran to be in non-compliance with the international nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), a move that would mean the issue being taken up by the UN Security Council and pave the way towards possible sanctions.

Britain-France and Germany struck a deal with Iran in October 2003, under which the latter agreed to cooperate with the IAEA, and were currently stressing the need to maintain "constructive engagement", a Western diplomat said.

In Washington, a senior State Department official warned late Tuesday that Iran was likely to be referred to the Security Council eventually unless it radically altered its attitude on matters relating to its nuclear program.

But Hosseini responded: "We think that the Americans do not want to accept the fact that Iran is not looking for nuclear weapons programs. This is a fact but they don't want to accept this fact."

The 13 non-aligned states on the IAEA board of governors were Wednesday examining the compromise text for the first time. Several diplomats from those countries said they were "uncomfortable" that the draft had been leaked to the press before it had been given to them.

Meanwhile, Libya took a further step towards cooperation with the IAEA, signing an additional protocol to the NPT which allows IAEA inspectors to carry out wider, unannounced inspections of its nuclear facilities.

This came after the IAEA board adopted a resolution to notify the UN Security Council that Tripoli had violated its nuclear non-proliferation commitments but had since cooperated in remedying this, so that sanctions would not be called for.

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