Before U.N. vote, Iran says atomic work won't stop

By Edmund Blair

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's president said on Friday that world powers will not prevent it pursuing its nuclear ambitions, the day before a possible vote on a third round of U.N. sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Western envoys at the U.N. Security Council said they expected a vote on Saturday on a new resolution because Iran had refused to halt work that the West believes is aimed at making nuclear bombs. Iran denies this and says sanctions are illegal.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, facing a popularity test in a parliamentary election on March 14, has been criticized by some of his Iranian opponents for strident speeches, which they say isolate Iran.

A senior Iranian cleric on Friday backed him and his handling of the atomic file, the latest supportive remark from Iran's powerful clerical establishment before the vote.

But a U.S. spokesman, reacting to the Iranian president's comments, said such remarks were pushing the Islamic Republic further outside the international community.

"FINAL VICTORY"

"The Iranian nation will have the final victory in the nuclear arena," Ahmadinejad told a military gathering in Tehran, according to the official news agency IRNA. "No power will be able to obstruct the movement of the Iranian nation."

The president had previously said no amount of U.N. sanctions would deter Iran from what he insists is a peaceful program aimed at mastering technology to make electricity so that Iran can export more of its oil and gas reserves.

Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said: "He just further isolates Iran and the Iranian people and that's not our goal at all."

"Iran knows what it needs to do, Iran is the outlier here as the international community unites."

Ahmadinejad has said this month's report by the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran was a victory because it said several suspicions about Tehran's aims had been resolved. However, it also said some concerns remained.

Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of Iran's conservative Guardian Council, a body that vets and can bar candidates for parliament, gave Ahmadinejad his backing in a sermon at Friday prayers that was broadcast on state radio.

"The victory you (Iranians) are experiencing is because of the courage of the Iranian president," he said.

REFORMISTS BARRED

Reformists opposed to the president accuse the Guardian Council of political bias in barring many of their hopefuls, an accusation that the council rejects.