Iran warns UN against tough nuke resolution

"Any harsh measures will face a proportionate reaction," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"If the other side chooses anything but the path of negotiations, our attitude will change accordingly," he added, without elaborating on how Tehran could retaliate.

The warning came as a draft resolution was circulated in the UN Security Council. If adopted, Iran would be legally obliged to suspend all uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, at the centre of fears the country could acquire nuclear weapons.

Iran insists that it only wants to enrich uranium to make reactor fuel, and argues that this is a right under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Several senior Iranian officials have already warned that the Islamic republic could end UN inspections and leave the NPT.

"Iran will clearly not give up its rights. Our rights are non-negotiable," Asefi said, while at the same time appealing for negotiations "without any preconditions" to resolve the nuclear standoff.

The five permanent Security Council members plus Germany decided to send the Iran nuclear dossier back to the Security Council after Tehran failed to respond to an offer of incentives in exchange for a halt to enrichment.

Iran has said it is prepared to negotiate, but not suspend first.

"Everything should be a result of negotiations," Asefi said, adding that Iran was still studying the proposal.

"After the committees' work is done, we will give a response and start talks for achieving results," he said.

Iran has promised to reply by August 22.

Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday told arch-foe Israel to "pack up" and move somewhere outside the Middle East, the state news agency Irna reported.

"I advise them to pack up and move out of the region before being caught in the fire they have started in Lebanon," said Ahmadinejad, who has repeatedly called for the Jewish state to be relocated elsewhere on the planet.

Iran refuses to recognise Israel and opposes any two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ahmadinejad has in the past called for Israel to be "wiped off the map" or relocated as far away as Alaska.

Israel launched its offensive in Lebanon on July 12 after Shia Hezbollah militiamen captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in attacks on the Israel-Lebanon border.

The Jewish state is also continuing with its attacks on the Gaza Strip, with the aim of retrieving a soldier snatched by Palestinian militants and stopping rocket fire.

"Zionists have launched their own destruction by attacking Lebanon," Ahmadinejad added, while accusing Britain and the United States of being "accomplices in this regime's crimes".

Iran, like Syria, has been accused of financing and arming Hezbollah but has always maintained it only gives "moral" support.