Russia will host another round of talks next week with the United States, the European Union and China on Iran's nuclear programme, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Friday.

The talks will be held in Moscow on Tuesday, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Krivtsov.

A senior Russian nuclear official said on Thursday that the centrifuges available to Iran are not sufficient to launch industrial uranium enrichment.

"Uranium enrichment in Iran is not arousing concerns in Russia. There is nothing unexpected in this. The availability of 164 centrifuges in Iran is a fact that has been known for a long time," Russian Atomic Energy Agency chief Sergei Kiriyenko said.

China said on Thursday that Cui Tiankai, assistant Foreign Minister, would visit Iran and Russia from Friday to Tuesday.

US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns will also be in Moscow on Monday for a meeting of political directors of the Group of Eight, the US Embassy said.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), visited Teheran on Thursday and pushed Iranian officials to suspend uranium enrichment until questions over Teheran's nuclear programme have been resolved.

However, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Iran will not retreat "one iota" on its uranium enrichment.

On Friday, Ahmadinejad said in a speech: "Today, thank God, the Iranian nation is a powerful one and we are going to have a dialogue with the world from a position of power."

"Everything we have is from God, and a few weaklings cannot stand against the Iranian people," he said.

Meanwhile, Iran's hardline leadership branded the United States a "decaying power," brushing off Washington's call for strong UN Security Council action to stop Iran's controversial nuclear drive.

"The enemy should know Iran is not comparable to any country in the world. Now we are much more powerful than before," senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Janati told worshippers at Friday prayers in Teheran.

"The United States is a decaying power. Don't be intimidated by their threats. They don't have the stamina to do anything," said the head of Iran's Guardian Council, a powerful political watchdog.

Iran insists on its right to enrich uranium as part of a civilian power generation programme, but ElBaradei said on Thursday that Iran had told him it would accelerate efforts to answer questions on its nuclear plans.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani "renewed his commitment that the Islamic Republic of Iran will accelerate its efforts to work with us in next couple of weeks to provide clarity to the issue that we need to clarify," he said.

"On the other issue of confidence-building measures, including suspension of enrichment, we had a good discussion. We exchanged views on different processes and modalities for Iran to come to terms with the request of the international community and to work with the international community," he said.

"To build confidence we agreed that we will continue an intensive dialogue in the next few weeks with the aim of being able to move forward on this difficult and important issue."

Source: China Daily