Defiant Iran gets key backing over nuclear sanctions

Iran said on Tuesday it can deter attacks over its nuclear drive, as China and Turkey raised doubts about sanctions and the United States reassured Israel of its will to stop Tehran getting atomic arms.

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar made the defiant statement after signing a security agreement in Doha with Qatar -- a major ally of his country's arch-foe, the United States.

"We are highly confident about our capacities, and our great means of deterrence," Najjar said.

"We do not feel in danger... If someone tries to endanger our national security, we will retaliate and make him regret his action."

His comments came with US Vice President Joe Biden in the Middle East to drum up support for fresh sanctions against Iran, as well as bolster a tentative resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace talks.

"We're determined to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and we are working with many countries around the world to convince Tehran to meet its international obligations and cease and desist," Biden told reporters in Jerusalem after meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Islamic republic is suspected by world powers of trying to develop an atomic bomb, but insists that its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

"Iran must also curb its other destabilising actions in the region well beyond their desire to acquire nuclear weapons, and that is their continued support for terrorist groups that threaten Israel and I might add our interests as well," Biden said.

Israel considers Iran to be its greatest enemy after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated comments that it will be wiped off the map and his questioning of the Holocaust.

The Jewish state is widely reported to be the only nuclear-armed power in the Middle East, but it refuses to confirm or deny this, instead pursuing a policy of "nuclear ambiguity."

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday gave the strongest indication yet that Ankara would oppose a new round of UN sanctions against Tehran.

Erdogan said that Turkey, one of nine non-permanent members of the UN Security Council that could vote on any new Iranian sanctions resolution presented by the year's end, believed that more punitive measures would fail.

"I don't believe that any further sanctions will yield results," he told reporters during a visit to Saudi Arabia, adding that two earlier rounds of sanctions "have never yielded results."

Turkey, which has good relations with its neighbour Iran, has offered to host an exchange of Iran's low-enriched uranium (LEU) for 20-percent-enriched uranium supplied by world powers to Tehran as part of a UN-drafted deal.

Iran and world powers are locked in a stalemate over the deal which envisages shipping out Iran's LEU to France and Russia for further conversion into higher-grade uranium to power a research reactor in Tehran.

"Those who want to stop Iran from having nuclear weapons should make sure that no country in the region has nuclear weapons," Erdogan said.

"The first and second rounds (of sanctions) never yielded results," said Erdogan, stressing that the correct approach towards Iran was "diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy."

Earlier on Tuesday, permanent UN Security Council member China also insisted that diplomacy was the way to end the standoff.

"We have said all along that the Iranian nuclear issue has to be peacefully resolved by diplomatic means through dialogue and negotiations," foreign ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing.

"At present there is still space for diplomatic efforts, dialogue and consultation."

China, one of five veto-wielding Security Council members and a close ally of Iran, has so far refused to agree to tougher sanctions against Tehran, despite increasing pressure from Washington.

Among the other five permanent Security Council members, Britain, France and the United States are all pressing for new sanctions.

The fifth, Russia, last week signalled a shift in its stance, saying it was ready to consider punitive measures against Tehran. Other non-permanent members with reservations about new sanctions include Brazil and Lebanon.