Wednesday, April 12 2006 09:57 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement that Iran has successfully enriched uranium for the first time has only underscored the international community's 'serious concerns', the United States has said and made it known that it will be consulting the others in the Security Council on the next course of action.

Briefing newspersons aboard Air Force One on the way to Missouri, the White House Spokesman Scott McClellan took a pretty grim view of the statement of Ahmadnejad, but was careful in not making any rushed statement on the issue of economic sanctions and the Security Council.

"I think it only further underscores why the international community has serious concerns about the regime's nuclear ambitions. This is a regime that needs to be building confidence with the international community. Instead, they're moving in the wrong direction," he said.

"This is a regime that has a long history of hiding its nuclear activities from the international community, and refusing to comply with its international obligations," he said.

Defiant statements and actions only further isolate the regime from the rest of the world, and further isolate the Iranian people," he said.

The Spokesman was also non committal in the kind of response of the United States or if Washington was planning to take any 'additional' action.