Monday, March 6 2006 14:00 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Tehran: Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today(Mar 6,2006) Iran will not be 'bullied', just hours before the start of a meeting of the UN's nuclear watchdog that could prompt Security Council action.

"If they want to put political pressure on us, our decisions and behaviour will be reconsidered," the hardliner was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA during a ceremony marking national tree-planting day.

"We will not be bullied and we ourselves are not bullies," the president said, calling on the International Atomic Energy Agency's 35-nation board to "accept Iran's rights" to pursue a nuclear energy programme.

The IAEA is to begin meeting in Vienna today amid mounting Western concerns that Iran could acquire, through its effort to master the nulcear fuel cycle, the capacity to make atomic weapons.

Iran has refused to bow to IAEA demands that it return to a moratorium on uranium enrichment work, arguing such activities are for peaceful purposes and therefore a 'right' under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.