CORRECTED-Iran strikes defiant stance before UN vote

A corrected repetition follows:
By Parisa Hafezi

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran renewed its defiant stance on Sunday, vowing to ignore a likely U.N. Security Council resolution against its atomic programme and to strike back if it came under military attack.

U.N. ambassadors from the United States, Britain and France are expected to introduce a resolution this week to legally oblige Iran to comply with the council's demands, hitherto rebuffed by Tehran, that it halt all uranium enrichment work.

Failure to comply with the resolution could see Iran face limited sanctions, although veto-wielding council members China and Russia say they do not favour such a move for now.

But Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, said Iran would continue to defy the council.

"Iran will not implement any forced resolution," he said in speech to university students in Tehran.

"Iran's plan is to have research and development and the nuclear fuel cycle in Iran," he added, underlining Iran's determination to continue production of nuclear fuel in defiance of calls from the United Nations that it stop.

Western countries fear Iran could produce highly-enriched uranium for use in warheads rather than uranium enriched to the low level needed for power stations. Tehran says it has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons.

Larijani's pledge to keep the fuel cycle in Iran ran counter to earlier remarks by Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, who suggested there could be still be room to consider a proposal to move Iran's enrichment work to Russia.

Although Washington has said it prefers a diplomatic solution to the stand-off, analysts say U.S. hawks who see Iran's enrichment of uranium as a tripwire for military action may feel there is not enough time for diplomacy.

"We have thought about a possible military attack," Larijani said. "What the leader said should be taken seriously ... If they want to harm us, we will harm them."

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week Iran would harm U.S. interests around the world if it was attacked.

ECONOMY VULNERABLE

Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that it planned to start installing 3,000 centrifuges by the end of this year. If running continuously for a year these could produce enough uranium for a warhead.

Diplomats reckon the most likely first step against Iran would be Zimbabwe-style travel restrictions on politicians, before economic sanctions were considered.

Iran's economy would be particularly vulnerable to sanctions on gasoline imports, bank loans and engineering parts, diplomats and analysts say.

But oil officials say the embargoes against crude oil shipments from the world's number 4 exporter would be unthinkable. Hydrocarbons account for 80 percent of Iran's export earnings.

Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian said there was little risk of sanctions on Iran's energy sector while oil prices flirt with record highs above $70 a barrel.

"Due to the sensitivity of the oil market, any action like that will increase oil prices very high. I believe (neither) the U.N., (nor) other bodies will put any sanction on oil or the oil industry," he told a news conference in Islamabad.

(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider in Islamabad)

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