Iran says more UN steps won't stop its nuclear work

TEHRAN (Reuters) - A third U.N. sanctions resolution and efforts by the United States to isolate Iran will not deter the Islamic Republic from pursuing its nuclear program, an Iranian Foreign Ministry official said on Sunday.

Washington has been leading efforts to isolate the Islamic Republic because of atomic activities which U.S. officials say are aimed at building nuclear warheads, a charge Tehran denies.

The United Nations has slapped two rounds of sanctions on Iran since December and Washington has threatened more U.N. steps unless Tehran heeds a demand to halt uranium enrichment, the part of the atomic program that most worries the West.

"The issuing and imposing of resolutions will not ... change our mind from the path we have chosen and on the continuation of our activities," Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference.

Alongside U.N. sanctions that include measures against an Iranian state bank, the United States has imposed its own steps to penalize Iran, such as targeting a second Iranian bank and urging international firms to stop dealing with Iran.

Many international banks have already stopped dollar transactions with Iran, switching to euros or other currencies. Some European executives say they feel increasing pressure from Washington to halt all business with Iran.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also insisted Iran would not back down from its nuclear plans, saying the country had mastered the science for making nuclear fuel.

"We will not retreat even one iota from our nuclear rights," he said in a speech on Sunday evening. "Today Iran is a nuclear country and nuclear knowledge and nuclear science is in the brains of our scientists."

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Thursday to discuss the dispute but failed to break the deadlock. They agreed to meet again in two weeks.

"We discussed concepts which could serve as a basis for negotiations and suggested ideas to unblock the current situation," Larijani told the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

"We agreed to work on those during the next two weeks. That, in itself, shows there is room to resolve this issue," he added.