Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that his country should not show weakness over its nuclear program, a day after Tehran ignored a United Nations deadline to stop nuclear work which the West says could be used for making bombs.

"If we show weakness in front of the enemy the expectations will increase but if we stand against them, because of this resistance, they will retreat," he said in a speech in northern Iran, Iran's ISNA news agency said.

In the past, he said, compromise over the program, which Tehran says is intended solely for peaceful power supplies, had led to increased demands from the West.

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According to an Internation Atomic Energy Association report released on Thursday, Iran failed to suspend uranium enrichment activity by February 21, ignoring a UN Security Council deadline to halt the work.

The UN watchdog also said in a report that Iran had installed two cascades, or networks, of 164 centrifuges in its underground Natanz enrichment plant, with another two cascades close to completion.

Iran's defiance of a 60-day deadline set by the Council when it banned nuclear technology transfers to Iran on December 23 will expose Iran to wider sanctions over its atomic energy program.

U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Thursday that on Monday, Germany and the officials from the five permanent UN Security Council members with veto rights - the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France - plan to meet in London to begin drafting a new sanctions resolution.

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