Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad puts traditional scarves around his neck during a public address in the Iranian city of Zanjan on April 28, 2006. (-/AFP/Getty Images)

Tehran (dpa) - Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday termed Iran's decision to pursue its nuclear programmes as irreversible.

"The decision by Iran to pursue nuclear technology and produce nuclear fuel in line with all international commitments is legal and irreversible," Ahmadinejad said on state television in a first reaction to Friday's report by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei.

"We will not accept any discrimination, this (uranium enrichment) is our Red Line which we will not allow to be trespassed by anybody," he added.

He termed the current phase as a "test" for international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency and called on the UN not to let its international credit being darkened by superpowers.

"The UN can ask us to remove whatever remaining ambiguities but not deprive us from the whole (nuclear) technology," Ahmadinejad said.

Ahmadinejad called on the West to respect the will and right of the Iranian nation and allow the Iran case being returned to the IAEA.

The deputy of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization said earlier Saturday that Iran will present the IAEA within the next three weeks a new plan for settling the nuclear dispute,

Mohammad Saeidi said in an interview with the news network Khabar that the main condition for starting the new plan would however be maintaining the Iranian nuclear case within the IAEA and not the United Nations Security Council.

Saeidi said that within the plan Iran would also resume voluntary implementation of the IAEA Additional Protocol and renewed snap IAEA inspections of Iran's nuclear sites but continue nuclear enrichment for research purposes.

Saeidi had said on Friday night that the eight-page report from IAEA chief ElBaradei contained "no negative aspects" and once again showed that the IAEA still had the potential to deal with the Iranian nuclear case and that involvement of the UN Security Council was the "totally wrong way."

The Iranian official claimed that ElBaradei would also welcome the Iranian case being evaluated within the IAEA and not the Security Council.

"The report was of course not very satisfactory and could have been better but our new plan could be the most suitable way to settle the dispute in a diplomatic way - under the condition however that some countries stop their stubborn approach," Saeidi said.

He termed the Security Council demand from Iran to stop the enrichment process as illegal and contrary to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and therefore not able to be implemented.

He stressed that also the differences over the P-1 and P-2 devices and the nuclear pollution mentioned in ElBaradei's report have been settled with the IAEA by almost 80 per cent.

Saeidi however noted that the remaining differences are related to issues going beyond Iranian borders, referring to Pakistan from where Iran had purchased the devices.

"We are currently using only P-1 devices in our uranium enrichment process but we have already told the IAEA that it would be inevitable to use the most progressive devices to accelerate the enrichment process," the Iranian official said.

He added that the research phase of the enrichment process in the Natanz plant in central Iran was continuing within a 164 centrifuge-cascade and at a 3.6 per cent level but Iran planned to expand the cascades to 3000 centrifuges within one year.

"This would enable us the start of the initial phase of industrial enrichment," Saeidi said while stressing that the Natanz plant has just recently been inspected again by the IAEA.