Hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led a chorus of defiant Iranian criticism of new UN sanctions imposed on the Islamic republic on Wednesday, saying they deserved to be "thrown in the dust bin."

"These resolutions are not worth a dime for the Iranian nation," he said.

"I gave one of them (world powers) a message that the resolutions you issue are like a used hanky which should be thrown in the dust bin. They are not capable of hurting Iranians."

The UN Security Council slapped a fourth set of punitive measures on Iran, hoping to persuade Tehran to curb its suspect nuclear programme through broadened military and financial sanctions.

The vote in the 15-member council was 12 in favour of the US-drafted resolution, with Lebanon abstaining and Brazil and Turkey voting against.

World powers led by the United States accuse Iran of masking a weapons drive with what Tehran says is a purely civilian atomic programme.

Iran says it is pursuing nuclear technology purely for the peaceful goal of generating electricity.

Ahmadinejad lashed out at world powers in a speech in the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

"Those who have atomic bombs, have used them, stored them or threatened others with them, keep issuing resolutions against us under the pretext that Iran might build an atomic bomb in the future," he said.

Tehran's envoy to the UN atomic watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said Iran will not halt uranium enrichment despite the new sanctions.

"Nothing will be changed. We'll continue without any interruption our enrichment activities under the full scope of IAEA safeguards... and the NPT (nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty)," Soltanieh told reporters in Vienna after the sanctions vote.

"Even a second enrichment activity will not be suspended," Soltanieh said of Iran's recent move to enrich uranium to a higher level of 20 percent purity.

"What happened today in New York was another dark chapter of mistakes and miscalculations" by Western nations, he added.

Iranian lawmaker Alaeddin Borujerdi told Mehr news agency that parliament's commission on national security and foreign policy will "next Sunday draw up the draft of a bill" aimed at revising ties with the IAEA.

Uranium enrichment can be used not only to make fuel for nuclear energy, but also the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

Iran has long been enriching uranium to low levels of purity, in defiance of three previous sets of UN sanctions.

Earlier this year, it began enriching to higher levels, ostensibly to make the fuel needed for a Tehran research reactor which makes radioisotopes for medical use.

Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi slammed China, which has emerged as Iran's main trading partner in recent years, for agreeing to the sanctions.

"China is gradually losing its respectable position in the Islamic world and by the time it wakes up, it will be too late," he told ISNA news agency.

"There was a time when China branded the US as a paper tiger. I wonder what we can call China for agreeing to this resolution."

Salehi, who oversees Iran's nuclear programme, also accused Beijing of "double standards" by taking a position towards "North Korea which has left the NPT" different than "with Iran which is a member of the NPT."

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, speaking to Fars news agency from Dublin, called the sanctions a "backward move."

"We had made our move on the chessboard for cooperation and confidence building which was the Tehran declaration," he said of a nuclear fuel swap deal signed on May 17 by Iran, Brazil and Turkey.

"Now they (the world powers) are making their move and they have to wait for Iran to sum up the situation and make its next move."

Foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told Iran's Al-Alam television the Security Council had taken an "incorrect step" which would "complicate the situation" more.

And Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, just minutes before the sanctions vote, told state news agency IRNA Tehran would deliver a "firm" response if it were confronted with new UN measures.

earlier related report
Ahmadinejad to snub Shanghai group meeting: Russian source
Moscow (AFP) June 9, 2010 - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad plans to stay away from a meeting of the Shanghai group this week as ties between Moscow and Tehran fray over Iran's nuclear programme, a high-ranking Russian source said.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional security group set up as an alternative to NATO in 2001, will hold a meeting in Uzbekistan Thursday and Friday when it will consider opening its doors to new members.

Besides heavyweights Russia and China, the group also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Several countries, including Iran, India and Pakistan, hold observer status and have in the past expressed interest in joining the regional grouping.

"The Iranian president will not be there," a high-ranking Russian diplomatic source told reporters in comments released Wednesday.

He said Iran planned to send a delegation to the summit but refused to say why Ahmadinejad himself chose to stay away from the group, which his country wants to join.

Ahmadinejad is Wednesday due to hold talks with President Emomali Rakhmon in the Tajik capital Dushanbe and attend a UN-sponsored conference on resource security. On Thursday he will head to China for a visit to the Shanghai Expo.

"Iran's president will not be flying from Dushanbe to Tashkent to take part in the SCO. Ahmadinejad will be flying on Thursday morning from Dushanbe to Shanghai for the Expo," an Iranian diplomat told AFP in Dushanbe.

The diplomat, who was travelling in Ahmadinejad's delegation, declined to comment on Ahmadinejad's reasons for not attending the conference.

Ties between traditional allies Moscow and Tehran have recently deteriorated as Russia's patience over Iran's nuclear programme runs thin and Moscow has expressed willingness to support UN sanctions against the defiant Islamic republic.

Ahmadinejad --- who chose Russia for his first foreign trip since his landslide re-election victory last year -- last month accused Russia of "siding with those who have been our enemy for 30 years."