The United States reiterated on Tuesday its rejection of the Russian proposal that would allow Iran to enrich uranium on a limited scale.

"We've made it very clear as have many in the international community that the regime must suspend all enrichment activity," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

"It cannot be allowed to pursue enrichment in any capacity or on any scale that would allow the regime to develop technologies needed to develop nuclear weapons," McClellan said.

McClellan made the remarks before Tuesday's scheduled meeting between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

According to a report by the New York Times on Tuesday, Russia proposed that Iran would temporarily suspend all uranium enrichment activities at its facility at Natanz but then be allowed to do what Russia describes as "limited research activities" in Iran's uranium enrichment program.

The proposal is a reversal of its previous stance and seemed motivated by its determination to protect Iran from judgment by the United Nations Security Council, the report said.

The reports of the proposal prompted Rice to call Mohamed ElBaradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency and said "the United States cannot support this."

Rice told ElBaradei that Washington wanted to see Iran's case before the United Nations Security Council as soon as this week's agency board meeting was over.

The United States has insisted on referring Iran's nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council for possible sanctions.

Source: Xinhua