"While we insist on our right to technology for peaceful purposes, we have and will leave no stone unturned in order to provide assurances of our peaceful intentions," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said at the United Nations.

In a resolution last Saturday, the International Atomic Energy Agency demanded that Iran halt all activities related to uranium enrichment, a part of the nuclear fuel cycle that can be used for both energy and weapons purposes.

Nuclear fuel cycle work including enrichment is permitted under the Non-Proliferation Treaty for peaceful purposes, but the IAEA wants Iran to stop pending completion of a more than 18-month-long investigation.

The resolution also gives Iran until November 25 to clear up suspicions over its activities or risk seeing the issue referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions -- something the United States has sought.

Tehran's Islamic clerical regime has repeated insisted that its nuclear programme is intended for domestic energy needs.

"Access to technology for peaceful pruposes is the only true incentive for universality" of multilateral efforts to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, he told world leaders at the UN General Assembly.

Referring to Iraq's use of chemical weapons in the 1980-1988 war with Iran, Kharazi said his country was "the only victim of the unbridled use of these weapons in recent years."

He also took aim at Israel for its handling of the Palestinian conflict and its own suspected nuclear weapons capabilities.

"All countries of the region and beyond are unanimous in considering Israel's arsenal, including its weapons of mass destruction, combined with its policies and record of aggression and state terrorism, as the single greatest threat to regional and global peace and security," Kharazi said.

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