Iran, in a renewed challenge to US and European efforts to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear bomb, vowed on Wednesday it would never give up its nuclear programme.

President Mohammad Khatami also warned of ?massive? consequences if it was treated unfairly over its nuclear programme which Iran says is for peaceful purposes only and Washington believes is a cover for producing a bomb.

?We give our guarantee that we will not produce nuclear weapons because we?re against them and do not believe they are a source of power,? Khatami told foreign ambassadors in Tehran. ?But we will not give up peaceful nuclear technology.? In Washington, President George W. Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would be ?a very destabilizing force in the world? and urged the West to work together to stop this happening.

While the talks go on, Iran has suspended nuclear work, including uranium enrichment which can be used to make weapons-grade fuel.

But Khatami, echoing tough comments by other Iranian officials in recent days, said Iran would never halt enrichment. ?We consider enrichment our clear right and will never give it up. We suspended it voluntarily to show our goodwill.?

Washington is pressing Europe to take a tougher stance in its talks with Iran, threatening Tehran with referral to the UN Security Council for economic sanctions if these fail.

?The Iranians just need to know that the free world is working together to send a very clear message: Don?t develop a nuclear weapon,? Bush said during a meeting with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been reinforcing that message during a tour of Europe this week.

?(The) Iranians need to hear that if they are unwilling to take the deal, really, that the Europeans are giving ... then the Security Council referral looms,? she told Fox News. Rice said Washington had set no deadline for the EU process, and wanted to give diplomacy every chance to work.

Losing patience

But Iran has signalled its impatience with the pace of the EU talks, and on Wednesday Iran?s top nuclear negotiator Hassan Rohani accused Washington of wanting the process to fail.

?I stress very clearly that despite all our patience, if we feel others are not meeting their promises, under no circumstances would we be committed to continue fulfilling ours,? Khatami said. ?And we will adopt a new policy, the consequences of which are massive and would be the responsibility of those who broke their commitments,? he said. Khatami did not elaborate on what those consequences might be.

But Rohani told Reuters on Sunday Iran would accelerate its drive to master nuclear technology if the United States or Israel attacked its atomic facilities. Britain, France and Germany were holding a third round of talks with Iran in Geneva this week. They so far made little headway, with Tehran insisting it has a sovereign right to a civilian nuclear programme to produce electricity.

Diplomats said both the United States and Europe may even be preparing the ground for a possible failure of the talks, handing the dispute over to the UN Security Council. Washington has not specifically said what sanctions should be imposed on Iran, amid concerns that any clampdown on Iranian oil exports would drive up world oil prices. Russia and China, which along with Britain, France and the United States make up the five permanent members of the Security Council, would also be likely to oppose any sanctions on Iran.

Bush has refused to rule out military action, though Rice said this week an attack on Iran was not on the agenda for now. And on Wednesday senior general said in Washington the US military was not in a heightened state of planning on Iran.

?I?m not spending any of my time worrying about the nuclear proliferation in Iran. I haven?t been called into any late-night meetings at 8 o?clock at night saying, ?Holy cow, we got to sit down and go plan for Iran,? Air Force Lt. Gen. Lance Smith said at a Pentagon briefing.

?As far as the planning efforts, we simply go through our normal mode of updating whatever war plans we have for all parts of our region,? said Smith, deputy commander of the US Central Command.

Paul HUGHES and Tabassum ZAKARIA

WASHINGTON

US intelligence on Iran seen lacking

■ US intelligence is unlikely to know much about Iran?s contentious nuclear program and could be vulnerable to manipulation for political ends, former intelligence officers and other experts say. Amid an escalating war of words between Washington and Tehran, the experts say they doubt the CIA has been able to recruit agents with access to the small circle of clerics who control the Islamic Republic?s national security policy. Serious doubts also surround the effectiveness of an expanded intelligence role for the Pentagon, which former intelligence officials say is preparing covert military forays to look for evidence near suspected weapons facilities. ?I will be highly remarkably surprised if the United States has (intelligence) assets in the organs of power,? said Ray Takeyh, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. ?They don?t even know who the second-tier Revolutionary Guards are,? he added. Doubts about US intelligence on Iran have arisen amid talk of possible military strikes by the United States or Israel against suspected nuclear weapons facilities. to find anything out of substance except that there?s some mysterious place in the desert with barbed wire and mines around it,? he said.