Iran warns IAEA not to use 'language of force'

Iran warned the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Friday not to use threatening language against Tehran, as the UN nuclear guardian's board was set to take action on Iran for the first time since 2006.

"We recommend the IAEA not to refer to such methods and use the language of logic rather than force," the official IRNA news agency quoted Iran's IAEA envoy Ali-Asghar Soltanieh as saying.

The Iranian envoy added that a draft resolution tabled at the IAEA's Board of Governors meeting in Vienna would be counterproductive.

"Resolutions, sanctions and threats have always made the issue more complicated," Soltanieh said.

The focus of the resolution drafted by the permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, as well as Germany, was Iran's new enrichment plant at Fordu, near the city of Qom.

A vote on the resolution is expected to take place Friday. If the resolution is adopted, it will be transmitted to the Security Council.

Due to Tehran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programs, the United Nations Security Council has already passed four resolutions against Iran, three of them with sanctions.

Soltanieh earlier told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Iran would reduce its co-operation with the IAEA to a minimum if a new resolution was issued against the Islamic state.

He, however, backed down in his remarks to IRNA, by calling on the UN nuclear watchdog "to let the process be continued in a calm and constructive atmosphere."

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei on Thursday expressed disappointment with Iran and talked about a "dead end" as far as a breakthrough in the nuclear dispute with the country was concerned.