Friday, April 28 2006 09:52 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

United Nations: Iran will not comply with any Security Council resolution aimed at halting its nuclear enrichment program because its activites are legal and peaceful, and pose no threat to international security, Iran's UN ambassador has said.

Ambassador Javad Zarif said he expects a lot of pressure from the United States to impose another short-sighted decision on the Security Council after the release of a report today by UN nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

"Well if the Security Council decides to take decisions that are not within its competence, then Iran does not feel obliged to obey," Zarif said yesterday (Apr 27, 2006).

He maintained that the Security Council is not competent to deal with Iran's nuclear enrichment program "because it has been stated again and again by everybody who's familiar with this issue that this is not a threat, not imminent that Iran's program has shown no indication of being anything but peaceful," the Iranian ambassador said.

"Therefore the proper context for the discussion of this issue is within the IAEA," he said.

"It is not within the competence of the Security Council to deal with this issue and the Security Council will be simply eroding its authority by adopting any decision that does not fall within its competence," he said.

Zarif insisted that Iran would much prefer a peaceful resolution of the nuclear dispute and he blamed the United States for escalating the war of words.

"We're not upping the ante," he said.

"We're simply responding to others upping the ante. What do you expect the country from doing? Should we simply raise our hands and say, `OK we surrender. Thank you very much for all the threats and we're absorbing the threats and thinking about it?" he said.