President Ahmadinejad today rejected any future resolution from the UN Security Council on his country's controversial nuclear programme.

"The Iranian nation has chosen its path and will continue with it,” Mr Ahmadinejad said, according to a report carried by the students news agency ISNA. “Such illegal behaviour ... will not divert the Iranian nation from its path."

In Berlin yesterday, the five permanent Security Council members - Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States - joined with Germany in agreeing on the text of a new draft resolution to be presented to the full council in the coming weeks.

The West has been engaged in a diplomatic showdown with Iran since 2002 over Tehran's nuclear programme, with the United States believes could be used to acquire atomic weapons. Iran insists that it has the right to enrich uranium so it can develop a nuclear power programme.

The Security Council has already imposed two sets of sanctions, in December 2006 and March 2007, after Iran breached its obligations to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Washington has been pushing for a new resolution to impose a ban on business with leading Iranian state banks, but Russia and China, both strong commercial partners of Tehran, have hardened their opposition to such a move since US intelligence agencies reported that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003.

“We continue our path in seeking our nation’s rights within the framework of international laws,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. “Nobody except the International Atomic Energy Agency has the right to make decisions or impose anything on the Iranian nation."

The text of the new draft resolution has not been released but Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, said that it was neither tough nor punitive.

“The text in the form in which it was agreed and discussed yesterday in Berlin absolutely corresponds to our collective work on Iran,” Mr Lavrov told a news conference in Moscow.

“It welcomes the progress made between Iran and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) ... The measures in this draft do not have a tough sanctioning character."

Mr Lavrov said the new draft resolution would “call on countries to be alert in their transport relations with Iran so that those relations are not used to transport (potentially dangerous) materials”.

In Brussels, Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jaliil, said that Iran had exceeded its international obligations on its nuclear dossier. “Everyone acknowledges those activities are peaceful,” he said.

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