Russia is not ready to accept the logic for new sanctions against the country, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said, Ria Novosti reported.

Washington and its western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry.

Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions for turning down West's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment.

Tehran has dismissed West's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path.

Iran insists that it should continue enriching uranium because it needs to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it is building in the southwestern town of Darkhoveyn as well as its first nuclear power plant in the Southern port city of Bushehr.

Iran currently suffers from an electricity shortage that has forced the country into adopting a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas.

Earlier this month, a report by U.N. experts said Iran is continuing to use front companies and other concealment methods to circumvent U.N. sanctions but that the bans have succeeded in slowing its nuclear and ballistic missile program.

"Please be assured that none of the sanctions has affected our nuclear activities," Soltanieh said in what he described as a message to the EU and diplomats in New York, home of the U.N. Security Council.

Instead, "you are harming Iranian passengers," Soltanieh alleged.

Soltanieh implied that the Stuxnet computer virus that affected some centrifuges at its main enrichment facility in the central city of Natanz had little effect on its nuclear work. Scientists immediately worked on antivirus software to protect against the malware, which Tehran blames on the United States and Israel, he said.

"No matter what, the Iranian people are more determined to continue," Soltanieh said.

He commented during a discussion of Iran's nuclear capabilities at Vienna's Diplomatic Academy just days after the IAEA said in a restricted report that it has received new information alleging that Tehran my be working on a nuclear weapons program.

In other remarks Friday, Soltanieh insisted Iran doesn't want nuclear weapons.

"Are we hiding anything? No!" he said.

If that's the case, then Iran should fully cooperate with international community, said Germany's envoy to the IAEA, Ruediger Luedeking, who also participated in the discussion.

"Iran is not ready to address squarely the nuclear issue and that is something that needs to be addressed.