Iran Thursday hailed a "significant victory" after the European Union (EU) climbed down from its demand that the United Nations nuclear watchdog report the state to the UN Security Council.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said opposition from countries including Russia and India and the Non-Aligned Movement stopped the EU sending Teheran to the UN's highest body for possible sanctions.

"The EU's withdrawal was a significant victory for Iran," said Saeedi, also a member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team.

The EU has dropped the demand from a revised draft resolution after nearly 15 of the 35 members of the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) governing board, including Russia, opposed the EU draft resolution.

Iranian negotiator Javad Vaeedi said Iran's strong diplomacy pushed the EU to drop its Security Council push.

Vaeedi warned the EU against including a so-called "trigger mechanism" in the new draft resolution that would set the stage for a referral to the Security Council if Iran resumed activities linked to uranium enrichment or was found to be hiding any more sites from the IAEA.

"If America and the EU include such mechanism in the IAEA's resolution, ending snap inspections will be part of our strong reaction," he said, referring to Iran's current implementation of a protocol giving UN inspectors greater access to atomic sites.

Speaking at a regular press briefing in Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang said there was still room for dialogue to resolve the issue. He called for a resumption of EU-Iran talks that collapsed after two years when Teheran resumed uranium-processing work last month at a plant in Isfahan.

Earlier this week, the EU had circulated a US-backed draft resolution calling on the IAEA governing board to report Iran's secretive nuclear programme to the Security Council.

But with at least a dozen of the 35 members of the IAEA board opposed to the EU resolution, the EU cut out the key demand from a revised draft.

The new draft omitted any explicit threat that Iran would be referred to the Security Council but implied that the IAEA board could choose to refer the matter to the Council in the future.

"The history of concealment of Iran's nuclear activities ... and the resulting absence of confidence that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes have given rise to questions that are within the competence of the Security Council," the draft said.

It also declared that Iran had been in "non-compliance" with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which normally requires the IAEA board to notify the Council.

EU diplomats said they hoped to get unanimous support for what they called a very tough and fair draft resolution.

Will EU, US give up?

US Ambassador to the IAEA Gregory Schulte said: "A solid and growing majority of the IAEA board now also agrees on the need to report Iran to the UN Security Council.

"We support the European Union's effort to continue to develop the broadest possible consensus to find Iran in non-compliance and to prepare a report to the UN Security Council," Schulte said.

Top EU foreign ministers insisted Iran was not off the hook.

In a letter published in the Wall Street Journal, the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain and EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Teheran had shown no sign of flexibility despite repeated offers of co-operation by the EU.

Source: China Daily