Russia says Iran was deaf to its nuclear proposals

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia rejected on Thursday Iran's criticism of it for supporting draft sanctions against Tehran, saying Iran repeatedly had ignored Moscow's efforts to resolve the crisis over the Iranian nuclear programme.

In one of the worst rows between the two countries in decades, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday admonished the Kremlin for bowing to what he said was U.S. pressure to agree to sanctions.

Ahmadinejad bluntly warned President Dmitry Medvedev to be more cautious or risk being seen as an enemy of the Islamic Republic. The Kremlin told the Iranian president to refrain from "political demagoguery."

When asked by a reporter about Ahmadinejad's tirade, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said he viewed the comments as "emotional."

Underscoring Moscow's growing impatience with Iran, Lavrov said that Russian leaders had tried repeatedly to resolve the dispute but that Tehran had failed to respond properly.

"To our great regret, during years -- not just months -- Iran's response to these efforts has been unsatisfactory, mildly speaking," Lavrov said at a briefing in Moscow.

Lavrov also said that a nuclear fuel swap deal agreed between Iran, Turkey and Brazil would be an important breakthrough if implemented.

"We hail this step," he said. "Indeed, if it is fully implemented, it will... really create very important preconditions for improving the atmosphere for resuming talks."

Later on Thursday Lavrov phoned Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki to discuss the sanctions resolution and the nuclear fuel-swap deal, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

"The Russian side pledged active cooperation in pushing forward the negotiation process... with a focus on the need to find a mutually acceptable solution in the political-diplomatic arena as soon as possible," the statement said.

(Reporting by Dmitry Solovyov and Conor Humphries, editing by Guy Faulconbridge and Michael Roddy)