VIENNA, March 11: Washington and its allies were pushing the UN nuclear watchdog's board on Thursday to accept a toughly-worded resolution that condemned Tehran's nuclear secrecy and opens the door to sanctions, diplomats said.

In backroom meetings at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Canadian, Australian and European diplomats on the IAEA's Board of Governors met diplomats from the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to revise a draft IAEA resolution.

Earlier this week, the United States and the European Union's "Big Three", France, Britain and Germany, reached a tentative agreement on an Australian-Canadian draft text that "deplores" Tehran's withholding of sensitive information from UN inspectors and highlights a possible military dimension.

NAM states have 13 out of 35 seats on the IAEA board and proposed a series of amendments to tone down the harsh language of the resolution. For example, NAM wants the word "deplores" changed to "strongly regrets". However, NAM diplomats complained hardliners were not being very accommodating.

"They've given us peanuts," a diplomat told Reuters. "They don't want to budge." He said the NAM block, the largest on the board, would not back the resolution if its sponsors did not work a few more of its proposed amendments into the document.

NAM diplomats are not the only ones with problems about the text. Several board members told Reuters that the politically powerful Russians also had problems with the text.

Russia, which helps Tehran build a $800 million nuclear power station, has objected and tried to soften every US-backed IAEA resolution or statement on Iran in the past year. Russian UN delegates in Vienna declined to comment.

"Russia doesn't like this reference to the military and would like to see it out," said one diplomat. He said Russia might be afraid Washington would point to the resolution's wording on a possible military link as a reason for Moscow to end its lucrative atomic cooperation with Iran.