Iran on Thursday night rejected a resolution approved by the UN nuclear watchdog on the Iranian nuclear issue as "politically motivated."

"This resolution is politically motivated and has been approved under the pressures of the United States and its allies and is void of any legal or rational basis, and (therefore it) is unacceptable," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.

Earlier in the day, the 35-nation Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved a resolution on the Iranian nuclear file.

The resolution voices "serious concern" over Iran's recent resumption of uranium conversion activities and urges Iran to "re-establish full suspension of all enrichment-related activities."

However, the resolution does not mention the referral of Iran's nuclear case to the UN Security Council, which the European Union (EU) had previously said would be triggered by Iran's resumption.

The resolution also asks the agency's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to "continue to monitor closely the situation and to inform the Board of any further developments and to provide a comprehensive report on the implementation of Iran's Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Safeguards Agreement and this resolution by Sept. 3."

Asefi accused the EU, the longtime broker of the Iranian nuclear issue, of breaching agreements reached by the two sides and running counter to efforts to solve the Iranian nuclear crisis.

"By ratifying this resolution, the three European states (Britain, France and Germany) have acted contrary to the spirit of safeguards and negotiations conducted during the past two years as well as the Tehran-Paris agreement," the spokesman said.

"While the activities of the Islamic Republic have always been peaceful and carried out under the supervision of the IAEA, the approval of this resolution puts the efficiency and independence of the agency under serious question," Asefi said.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran has not given up its legitimate rights and lays emphasis on peaceful utilization of nuclear technology as before," he said.

Earlier, Iran's senior nuclear negotiator Cyrus Nasseri said in Vienna, Austria, that Iran would not yield and would forge ahead and become a "nuclear fuel producer and supplier within a decade".

"The resolution betrayed the agency's ability to verify that a peaceful facility remains peaceful. We are completely sure that Iran's nuclear installations and activities do not pose any threat and today's decision by the board was based on lack of confidence on the ability of the agency," Nasseri said.

Nasseri said operations at uranium conversion facilities would " continue under full-scope safeguards" and Iran was maintaining a suspension at the enrichment facility to keep the door open for negotiations.

The IAEA resolution was seen as a reaction to Tehran's rejection of a comprehensive nuclear proposal presented by the European trio and its resumption of uranium conversion activities in the central Iranian city of Isfahan on Monday.

Uranium conversion is a preparatory step toward uranium enrichment.

In the proposal, the European trio demanded that Tehran permanently halt uranium enrichment activities in exchange for nuclear fuel supplied by other countries as an objective guarantee that Iran's nuclear research would never be used for military purposes.

Iran suspended enrichment activities last November under the Paris agreement reached with the European trio one month earlier.

However, Tehran insisted that the suspension be a "voluntary and temporary move" for confidence building and subject to resumption under Iran's will.

Iran has stated that it would never give up its legal rights secured by the NPT, referring to uranium enrichment.

Regardless of warnings of the EU and the United States, Iran unsealed and fully restarted Isfahan conversion facilities on Wednesday after IAEA inspectors finished all work of installing surveillance equipment.

At the request of the EU trio, the IAEA Board of Governors opened an emergency meeting on Tuesday to discuss the Iranian nuclear issue.

The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge denied by Tehran.

(Xinhua News Agency August 12, 2005)