Tehran: The use of nuclear, chemical or biological arms is "haram", or strictly forbidden by Islam, Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi has said in Iran's strongest rejection yet of allegations that it is seeking to develop atomic weapons.

But, he said, exerting pressure on the Islamic republic over its nuclear energy programme being developed with Russian assistance was counter-productive.

'The News' quoted the minister as renewing Iranian accusations that fellow signatories of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) had failed to fulfil their side of the deal.

"We consider using biological, chemical and nuclear weapons as a 'haram' act," Kharazi told MPs in a Parliamentary question session focused on international tensions surrounding Iran's atomic programme.

"We have no nuclear weapons programme and we have said this frankly and clearly so many times. We have a security doctrine that is without nuclear weapons," the minister said on June 8.

"We only use nuclear facilities for peaceful purposes," he added, insisting that the work of Iranian scientists was a matter of national pride.

Iran's atomic energy agency chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh called for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to publish its findings as soon as possible "to prove that the United States is lying".

Meanwhile, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini called on university students to "maintain their calm" in order to foil what he said was a "devilish" US plot to destabilise the Islamic republic.

ANI