"I am still conducting intensive consultations and and I need some more time," Amano told the meeting in Vienna of the 189-nation NPT.

Diplomats have said they feared the Vienna meeting could descend into procedural wrangling as happened at the last review conference in New York in May 2005.

But in Vienna, Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters Wednesday that Tehran's position had not changed regarding its opposition to the NPT conference's agenda item "reaffirming the need for full compliance with the treaty."

On Monday, Soltanieh surprised the opening session when he insisted that this item could "create disputes by creating too much focus on one country. We don't want a direction given" against Iran.

Iran is isolated here, as both non-aligned states and Western powers want the debate to go ahead.

Their view is that there is nothing exceptional about calling for compliance with the NPT at a conference looking at ways to reinforce the treaty, several diplomats said.

Iran has refused to freeze uranium enrichment activities in defiance of UN calls for Tehran to suspend the sensitive process and despite UN-imposed sanctions.

The United States accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons but Tehran insists that it wants only to produce energy for a growing population.

The Vienna meeting is the first of a series of preparatory conferences ahead of the next general review in 2010 of the NPT. The landmark 1970 treaty remains the main legal barrier to the spread of nuclear weapons.

The hitch at the UN conference comes as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt ahead of a two-day conference on Iraq.

Rice has said she is ready to discuss the standoff over Iran's nuclear programme with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who is also attending the conference. On Tuesday however, Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Mostavafi said the conditions were not right for a dialogue.

Announcing the delay to the talks in Vienna, Amano told reporters: "The parties here need time to think. We are working very hard. It's complicated."

He said he had included the clause on compliance, and one on answering an Arab call for Israel to join the NPT, in order to make the process forward looking.

"So I made the (agenda) proposal and at this stage I don't think I need to change it," Amano said.

One Middle Eastern diplomat said Iran felt the agenda was designed against it and failed to insist on nuclear weapons states honoring the NPT by moving towards disarmement.

But he said there should be a solution by the end of the first week in order to save the second week of the two-week conference.

"It depends what point Iran is trying to take. They are trying to make things difficult for everyone," the diplomat said.

"But taking it to the brink and taking responsibility for the collapse of the prepcom (NPT preparatory committee meeting) is a different matter," the diplomat said.

But in the end, he added, Iran "always tries to work out things under the cover of international diplomacy."

Soltanieh said Iran was "prepared to have useful, constructive discussion" but insisted on a new agenda.

"Any other proposal which will have consensus, we will approve," he said.

Non-aligned nations were urging Iran to put off this fight until a UN nuclear watchdog meeting in June.

"But Iran says they must stand on principle now, to avoid precedents," a non-aligned diplomat told AFP.

earlier related report
China asked to freeze investment in Iran
Washington (AFP) May 02 - China should freeze investments in Iran and vigorously enforce UN sanctions against the Islamic republic for pursuing sensitive nuclear work, an ex-senior US official who crafted US policy on China said Wednesday.

Robert Zoellick, a former deputy secretary of state, said while the Russians had now "found cause to stop work" on Iran's key Bushehr nuclear power station, Beijing should cooperate with Washington, the European Union, Moscow and others to dissuade Tehran from its course of uranium conversion and enrichment.

"China could help through vigorous enforcement of sanctions on dual use technology and by urging full cooperation" with demands by the UN Security Council, he told a Washington forum.

Zoellick said China's inclination might be to try to avoid dealing with the "danger" posed by Iran because unlike North Korea, it might seem far away.

In addition, he said, Iran was a large supplier of oil to China with potential for Chinese investment.

"Yet, China should consider the systemic risks of Iran's posture," he warned.

"If Iran develops nuclear weapons, the whole Persian Gulf region will be endangered," he said.

Zoellick said that China could play an "influential role" by encouraging Iranian leaders to "choose a path of integration, not confrontation leading to isolation."

Beijing could let the Iranians know "quietly" that Iran will not gain new foreign investments if it continued to defy UN action, he said.

Zoellick said China also might believe that its internal security measures had limited its risk as a target of nuclear armed terrorists.

"But consider what will happen to the international economic system -- from which China benefits enormously -- if terrorists strike anywhere with weapons of mass destruction," he said.

"The flow of goods, capital, services, ideas, people and information across borders -- upon which the globalized system depends -- would come to a screeching halt."

Zoellick in a landmark speech in 2005 proposed that China consider itself -- and be treated by other countries -- as a "responsible stakeholder" in international system.

Officials from the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany were to meet this week to discuss their next moves on Tehran's controversial uranium enrichment program.

Iran is under UN sanctions due to nuclear activities that have fuelled fears that it is seeking to build atomic weapons.

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