Sept. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Iran said it won’t bow to international pressure to meet an end-of-September deadline for holding talks on its nuclear program. The U.S., China, Russia, France and the U.K., the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, and Germany, met near Frankfurt yesterday to discuss the offer for direct talks with Iran. “The Iranian nation favors interaction and dialogue but will not surrender to pressure,” state-run Press TV cited Hassan Qashqavi, the foreign ministry spokesman, as saying. He was replying to a question on how Iran will respond to the September deadline, Press TV said. The U.S. and its European allies suspect Iran is developing atomic weapons. They say they will seek international backing for stiffer sanctions on Iran should the Persian Gulf nation rebuff negotiations aimed at curbing its nuclear ambitions. Iran’s top negotiator, Saeed Jalili, said today his country will present updated proposals for talks next week, Agence France-Presse reported. Iran continues to enrich uranium in violation of United Nations sanctions, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report last month. The Vienna-based UN nuclear watchdog also said it can’t exclude the possibility that there is a military purpose to Iran’s nuclear program. Won’t Sway Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the threat of sanctions won’t sway Iran. “No one can impose sanctions on Iran anymore,” he said at a press conference in Tehran today, as quoted by the state-run Mehr news agency. It remains unlikely that Iran is willing to make the necessary compromises on at least limiting its enrichment of uranium, said Cliff Kupchan, a senior analyst at Eurasia Group in New York. The new Iranian proposal will probably focus on Iran’s role in the international order rather than offering concrete ways to resolve the nuclear dispute, according to Samuel Ciszuk, a Middle East energy analyst for London-based business intelligence company IHS Global Insight. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said July 27 that the U.S. will seek support for “a much tougher position” should Iran reject the deadline. Any new sanctions wouldn’t be incremental, he said on a visit to the Jordanian capital, Amman. Iran, holder of the world’s second-largest oil and gas reserves, has insufficient refining capacity and imports 40 percent of its gasoline needs. U.S. lawmakers have called for the U.S. to block Iran’s imports of refined oil products. “Sanctions are just a rusty sword which has no major effect,” Press TV quoted Qashqavi as saying. Pressing Iran The U.S., France, the U.K. and Germany have been pressing Iran to suspend uranium enrichment in return for help in developing civilian nuclear power and other economic incentives. Highly enriched uranium can be used to manufacture nuclear warheads or to fuel nuclear power plants. The UN Security Council has voted through three rounds of sanctions in an attempt to penalize Iran. Russia in a statement issued on behalf of the six world powers after yesterday’s meeting in Germany urged Iran to respond to the offer of talks. “We all strongly urged Iran to give diplomacy a chance to succeed,” said the statement, posted on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Web site today. “Iran should understand the urgent need to restore trust in the exclusively peaceful nature of its nuclear program through its full cooperation with the international community.” Opposition by Russia and China to wide-ranging sanctions against Iran has limited the range of punitive measures against the Islamic republic so far. Both countries wield vetoes as permanent members of the Security Council. Iran denies it seeks nuclear weapons and says the atomic program is needed to produce power and for research. To contact the reporter on this story: Henry Meyer in Dubai at hmeyer4@bloomberg.net.

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