Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Ahmadinejad showed little fear of the sanctions that the European Union and Washington want imposed if Iran carries on with the programme — which they believe is part of a secretive bid to build an atomic bomb.

“Certain powerful states are attempting nuclear apartheid through a discriminatory approach to the access to peaceful nuclear material, equipment and technology," he declared.

Asserting Iran’s “inalienable right” to nuclear technology, Ahmadinejad clouded the debate by calling for the establishment of a special UN committee to monitor weapons proliferation.

Ahmadinejad and his senior negotiators had spent the past week lobbying diplomats in the margins of the UN summit in New York, and the offensive appears to be paying off.

Britain, France and Germany — the so-called EU3 — supported by Washington, had hoped that a meeting of the 35-member board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna this week would end with a resolution referring Iran to the UN Security Council, but both China and Russia appeared ready to give Iran more time for negotiations.

The EU3 and America were angered when Iran resumed work last month at its Isfahan nuclear plant. The secretive facility is used to convert uranium “yellowcake” ore into uranium hexafluoride gas, the first stage of the cycle that can make high-grade fissile material for bombs.

With the IAEA vote this week so uncertain, even Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, has backed away from Washington’s previous hawkish stance. Before Ahmadinejad spoke yesterday Rice told the UN that the security council should take up the case if Iran refused to abandon “its plans for a nuclear weapons capability”, but dropped harsher anti-Iranian remarks from her prepared text and left the timing of any UN referral open.

Along with the new committee, Ahmadinejad suggested that Iran might share its nuclear technology with other Islamic nations under the supervision of the IAEA, and offered to open its uranium enrichment facilities to foreign companies. He also proposed enlarging the EU3 into a broader grouping, to include China, Russia and South Africa.

British officials have dismissed the ideas out of hand. “We’re extremely sceptical about both of them,” said one diplomat last week, insisting that the EU3’s demand that Iran halt its enrichment programme was a non-negotiable “red line”.

But board members such as Russia, China, India and Pakistan have energy deals with Iran and several so-called “swing vote” nations such as Tunisia, Algeria and Nigeria are wavering.

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