TEHRAN, Feb 21: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad vowed on Wednesday that Iran would continue its nuclear drive at rapid speed, defying the latest UN deadline for Tehran to suspend sensitive atomic activities.

That drew a call from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for Tehran to reconsider its defiance and to accept an offer of better relations with Washington.

It also prompted Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Iran's arch foe Israel, to call for greater international pressure on Tehran.

“Achieving nuclear energy is very important for the progress and development of our country,” Mr Ahmadinejad told a rally in the town of Siahkal in the northern Gilan province, the ISNA agency reported.

“It is worth it, even if we shut down other activities for 10 years and focus on this issue,” said Mr Ahmadinejad, without specifying which areas could be affected.

“With help of our youth, we will continue our activities to achieve this energy so that we can gain our rights in the shortest time possible,” he said.

The deadline was set by the UN Security Council on Dec 23 when it imposed sanctions and gave the UN nuclear watchdog 60 days to report on whether Iran has imposed a “full and sustained suspension” of uranium enrichment.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is due to report to the council by Friday and is widely expected to confirm that Iran is pushing ahead with enrichment, a process the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons.

It is not clear what further penalties Iran could face for failing to obey the deadline, but the United States has threatened to crank up the hitherto relatively limited sanctions measures.

“Short of a major change of heart, I would report that Iran has not complied with the demand of the international community to suspend,” Mr ElBaradei told the Financial Times earlier this week.

No such about-turn was apparent when Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani met ElBaradei in Vienna on Tuesday for their first talks this year.

“No discussions or agreements have been made over suspension of nuclear activities during these talks,” Iran's envoy to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the Fars news agency in Vienna.

Speaking in Berlin on Wednesday after talks with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Ms Rice said: “the Iranians have unfortunately not acceded to the international community's demands.” Ms Rice, in Berlin for a meeting of the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators, said she would be consulting with her major power counterparts on the next steps to take concerning Iran.

She re-affirmed a US offer, first made last May, to end a 27-year rupture in American-Iranian relations if Tehran complies with the UN conditions.

“We offered to reverse 27 years of policy to engage in the context of the six (parties) and I said I would meet with my Iranian counterpart any place, any where, any time if they suspend,” she said.

“I want to emphasise that the best course would be for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities so we can return to negotiations,” Ms Rice told a press conference.

“That's the purpose of having pressure on the Iranian regime,” she said.

For his part, Mr Olmert said in Jerusalem: “If there would be a concerted ... diplomatic, economic and political effort by the international community, I think there are serious chances that it will have an impact that may change the Iranian (position).—-AFP