The renewed statements of defiance came as officials publicly vented their anger over new delays by a Russian contractor in completing Iran's fist nuclear power station, orginally scheduled for launch in September

"The adoption of another resolution is unwelcome but is not worrying," government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham told reporters. "It will not affect our work and will not concern our people."

Elham reaffirmed the government's oft-repeated insistence that Tehran has no intention of suspending sensitive uranium enrichment activities, the key demand of the UN Security Council over its atomic programme.

"The issue of suspension is completely ruled out and cannot be brought up. They (the other side) have themselves given up on this," he said.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, meanwhile, angrily brushed off warnings at home that a second Security Council resolution against Tehran would put the country in an increasingly risky situation.

"Those who say that this country is in a critical situation just think they are politicians," Ahmadinejad told the government daily Iran.

"Which part of our country is in a critical condition?" he asked in the interview.

Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, warned on Monday that Iran should act with caution and even compromise to prevent the adoption of a second UN resolution.

"Some politicians in foreign affairs -- in fact I do not consider them to be politicians -- think that soft talking and pleading can arouse the sympathy of the other side," scoffed Ahmadinejad.

"But there is not such perception in the world."

On Monday, the Security Council's five permanent members plus Germany made "substantial progress" towards agreeing the new draft resolution tightening sanctions against Iran, Britain's UN ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said.

The draft would add financial and trade restrictions to sanctions already imposed on Iran's nuclear programme and ballistics industry in December.

"Such a hardline attitude to Iran's nuclear issue makes us more determined to pursue the nuclear stance," retorted the top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

At a disarmament conference in Geneva, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki reiterated that Tehran was ready to offer "necessary" guarantees on its nuclear programme if the issue is withdrawn from the Security Council.

In this case, "my country will be prepared to offer necessary guarantees in order to create confidence regarding non-diversion of its nuclear programme," Mottaki said, without specifying what guarantees Iran was prepared to give.

The government announced earlier this week that Ahmadinejad was intending to attend any crunch meeting of the Security Council in person to defend Iran's position but Elham insisted nothing had been confirmed.

Western powers want Iran to suspend uranium enrichment as they fear the process could be diverted away from civilian use to make nuclear weapons. Iran insists its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

Russia has been building the country's first atomic power station, which was set to go online later this year, but the Russian contractor has warned Tehran to expect delays amid mutual accusations about the financing of the project.

"It is deplorable that there has been a delay in launching the Bushehr plant," an angry Larijani was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency. "The Russians should keep their promises on time."

The fuel for the plant was to have been delivered this month and Larijani said its failure to appear underlined the importance of Iran being able to produce nuclear fuel on its own soil.

The United States has said it wants to resolve the standoff through diplomacy but not ruled out military action against Iran, saying all options remain open to bring Tehran into line.

General Rahim Yahya Safavi, the commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, warned that any aggressor attacking Iran would be handed "decisive blows that would be unimaginable for them", state television reported.

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