Iran vows to win nuclear tussle with West

A defiant President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Wednesday that Tehran was nearing its target of producing nuclear energy and launched a new tirade against Israel as world powers seek to impose new sanctions on Iran.

"We are moving towards the summit on the nuclear path," he said in a speech in Bushehr, the site of Iran's first nuclear power plant which Tehran expects to be commissioned in October.

"Iranians... will not back down one iota in defence of their rights," Ahmadinejad told cheering crowds.

Iran has been slapped with two sets of UN sanctions for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment and a third package is currently being considered by the Security Council.

But Ahmadinejad said: "The nuclear issue was the most important challenge since the (1979 Islamic) revolution but with the help of God and your resistance, it is ending in favour of the Iranian nation."

The West fears that Iran is using its nuclear drive to try to build atomic weapons, a charge Tehran has consistently denied, saying it is aimed at generating electricity.

Uranium enrichment is a process which makes nuclear fuel but can also be diverted to produce the fissile core of atomic bombs.

The Security Council on Monday held informal talks on a third sanctions resolution, a draft of which was agreed by the five veto-wielding permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and United States -- plus Germany. AFP