Rafsanjani warns US against 'adventures'

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has exhorted Iran to give up what she says -- and Iran denies -- is a nuclear weapons program.

US officials have stressed diplomacy but have not ruled out an attack on nuclear sites which Iran insists are working only to meet booming demand for electricity.

"The Persian Gulf is not a region where they can have fireworks and Iran is not a country where they can come for an adventure," senior cleric and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani told worshippers at Friday prayers.

"It is not acceptable that developed countries generate 70 or 80 percent of their electricity from nuclear energy and tell Iran, a great and powerful nation, that it cannot have nuclear electricity. Iran does not accept this," he added.

France produces close to 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power stations, but most major industrialized nations derive under 30 percent from this source, US Energy Information Administration data show.

Analysts often speak approvingly of Rafsanjani as a pragmatist who wants to restore diplomatic relations with the United States.

But Iran's right to produce its own nuclear fuel from uranium mined in the central deserts is a subject that unites conservatives and reformists, whatever else they differ on.

President Mohammad Khatami, in a fiery speech Thursday, declared the nation was united against any threat or attack. "If the invaders reach Iran, the country will turn into a burning hell for them," he told tens of thousands in central Tehran.

"Death to America!" chanted the crowd, at a rally marking the anniversary of the Islamic revolution. "Death to Israel!"

France, Britain and Germany have tried in talks with Iran to persuade the oil-rich country to drop its nuclear fuel-making program in return for economic incentives.

In Geneva, four days of closed-door discussions between the EU3 and Iran ended Friday with an agreement to meet again in mid-March in the same Swiss city, diplomatic sources said. "The process is continuing. There will be more meetings. The work was serious. All subjects were discussed," said one diplomatic source, who declined to be identified. Negotiators have agreed to make no public statements.