Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Tehran has a right to nuclear power, and "no one" will stop Iranians from developing the country.
In an interview with Britain's Guardian newspaper, the Iranian leader accused the United States of instigating a United Nations resolution urging Tehran to suspend its nuclear activities. He said the effort would fail.
Iran insists it is enriching uranium to generate electricity from nuclear power. The United States, Britain, France and Germany, among others, say Tehran is secretly building nuclear weapons.
On Thursday, a senior U.S. official said the United States plans to push quickly for U.N. sanctions on Iran if that country fails to suspend uranium enrichment by an end of August deadline, set by the U.N. Security Council.
Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said the U.S. will press for sanctions in early September.
Tehran has said it will respond by August 22 to an offer of economic incentives from the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. The incentives would be in exchange for a suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment activities.
Some information for this report was provided by and Reuters.