Iran is "one step" away from achieving its nuclear ambitions and will celebrate victory before the end of the Iranian year, next March, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said today.

Speaking in Baneh, a town in the northwest of Iran, near the border with northern Iraq, Mr Ahmadinejad told a crowd that the enemies of Iran were trying to stop the country pursuing its peaceful nuclear programme but that they would soon fail.

"They want to keep their monopoly on nuclear energy and thereby dictate on nations," he said, according to a report by IRNA, the state-run news agency. "However, they should know that the people of Iran will resist and will defend their legitimate right."

"Iran is only one step away from celebrating victory in its peaceful nuclear programme, said the President, and promised that this great celebration will come before the end of the current Iranian year (started March 20, 2006)," the news agency reported.

Today's speech followed a similar form to two bellicose addresses given by the Iranian President yesterday on his tour of the Iranian province of Kurdistan. In Sanandaj, the provincial capital, Mr Ahmadinejad told residents that "the Iranian nation is taking a major step towards accessing peaceful nuclear energy with every passing day".

Hours later, in the town of Kamyaran, he said with vigilance and solidarity, Iran was now "one step away" from nuclear success and advised "our malevolent enemies... to adopt a friendly attitude towards the determined Iranian nation."

"They should know that having friendly ties with the noble Iranian nations would be to their benefit, otherwise they would face disgrace and defeat, said the president," reported IRNA.

The permanent five members of the UN Security Council are still locked in stop-start negotiations over what action to take against Iran after the country refused to stop enriching uranium by August 31, as demanded by a UN Security Council resolution passed in July.

The US and the E3 group of Germany, France and Britain all suspect Tehran of attempting to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of a peaceful energy programme. Russia and China, meanwhile, which both have healthy trade relationships with Iran, are reluctant to impose punitive sanctions on the country and prefer a more conciliatory approach to Tehran's clerical regime.

Yesterday, speaking after the sixth round of closed door talks between the permanent Council members failed to produce an agreement, the US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, acknowledged that there still "wide gaps" between their respective positions.

Asked whether there had been any progress over the six rounds of talks, Mr Bolton said: "Well, we didn’t make any progress today. Let’s leave it at that."

Washington has tried to play down the differences between the veto-wielding powers at the UN -- the National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, has compared the diplomatic process to sausage-making, saying "It’s not pretty and a lot of it spills out to the public" -- but the importance of the negotiations was reinforced yesterday when President Bush stopped off in Moscow to meet President Putin in the search for a breakthrough.

The Security Council will be faced with more calls for action next week when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) presents its latest report on Iran's nuclear activities. The body is expected to report that Iranian officials have obstructed efforts to inspect the country's most sensitive installations and that inspectors have found traces of uranium and plutonium enriched to a level beyond what is necessary for nuclear power generation.

The extent and character of Iran's nuclear ambitions were also thrown into question this week by a separate confidential UN report on the arms embargo supposed to be in place in Somalia. The report claimed that Iran flew three cargo planes loaded with arms to Islamic militias in Somalia in return for access to the country’s uranium deposits, near the home town of Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the Somali Islamist leader.

"At the time of the writing of the present report, there were two Iranians in Dhusa Mareb engaged in matters linked to uranium in exchange for arms," the report said.

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