Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani vowed on Sunday that Iran will never be influenced by the US accusation on its nuclear program and will press ahead with its peaceful nuclear research, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"We should pay no heed to remarks made by US officials because they make a lot of two-edged and ambiguous remarks with the intention of affecting our will. We should rather rely on our own national potential in nuclear technology," Larijani was quoted as saying.

Making the comments in the southern city of Shiraz, Larijani also stressed that the upcoming nuclear talks between Iran and the European Union (EU) scheduled on Wednesday in Vienna, Austria, will be held "with no preconditions" and "continued if necessary".

Larijani was referring to the EU's expectation that Iran accepts an alleged Russian proposal, which allows Iran to conduct uranium conversion activities in exchange for the country's transfer of enrichment process to Russia.

Iran has resolutely rejected the proposal, insisting that its enrichment work must be performed within its own territory.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said what Iran's next move on the nuclear issue will depend on the new round of talks with Europe.

"We should wait to see results of talks which are very important and to some degree difficult. We should wait for future talks which are on the agenda," Asefi was quoted as saying.

Earlier in the day, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the US accusation on Iran's nuclear program as a pretext to deprive the Islamic Republic of its legal rights to peaceful nuclear technology.

The nuclear talks between Iran and the EU have been stranded since Iran resumed uranium conversion activities early August.

Iran insists that its claims of rights to peaceful nuclear technology are reasonable and therefore it cannot give up uranium enrichment, a key process to produce material used for both electricity generation and nuclear weapons building.

The United States accuses Iran of developing nuclear weapons secretly, a charge rejected by Tehran as politically motivated.

Source: Xinhua