"Iranians consider it their right to exploit peaceful nuclear fuel cycle technology and insist on their undeniable right," the hardline president said in a rally in the northeastern town of Bojnurd.

"If some people think they can talk to us with a language of force and threats, they are making a bad mistake. If they don't realise that now, one day they will learn it the hard way," he warned.

On Monday, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that obliges Iran to halt uranium enrichment and other work by August 31 or face the prospect of sanctions.

Iran insists it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel and that this is a right enshrined by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But the technology can also be extended to make the fissile core of an atom bomb.

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