VIENNA, March 11: Russia dislikes the explicit reference to a military link to Iran's nuclear programme in a draft UN nuclear resolution backed by the United States and would like this section deleted, diplomats said on Thursday.

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 its possible military dimension.

Russia, which is helping Tehran build a 800 million dollars nuclear power station in Iran, has objected and tried to soften every US-backed IAEA resolution or statement on Iran in the past year.

"Russia doesn't like this reference to the military and would like to see it out," said one diplomat. Another said Moscow's concerns about the text were "no surprise". The draft resolution, to be submitted to the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors, stops short of referring Iran to the UN Security Council for sanctions.

But US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he was confident Iran would be warned it could face sanctions. Iran accused Washington of "bullying" the IAEA and warned the resolution could "complicate" its ties with the watchdog.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which has 13 seats on the 35-nation IAEA board, also voiced concerns about the text, but Western states were working to bring them round. A non-aligned diplomat said NAM had suggested only "minor changes".

Moscow's concerns about the resolution come amid worries that President Vladimir Putin's downgrading of Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry to a state agency may kill off a plan to finish the nuclear reactor in Iran, removing a big stumbling block in Russia-US ties, according to industry insiders in Russia.

The draft resolution cites IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's finding in his Feb 24 report on Iran that "most of the workshops used in Iran's centrifuge enrichment programme are owned by military industrial organizations".

But Mr ElBaradei said: "That doesn't mean it is a military programme. We have seen many of these workshops situated in military sites." Hardline states say that if the programme was a civilian power programme, it would be owned by Iran's well-developed energy sector.-Reuters