Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that the Iranian nation would stand firmly to "regain its rights" on peaceful nuclear technology, the official IRNA news agency reported.

"Today we announce with proud that the peaceful knowledge and technology are in our disposal...The Iranian nation has stood firmly to regain its rights and will continue the path until their full restoration," Ahmadinejad was quoted as saying in his Iranian New Year message.

Tuesday is the first day of the year 1385 of the Iranian calendar, and the Iranians observe the event as "Noruz", the most celebrated festival of Iran.

Ahmadinejad reiterated that the nuclear negotiations with the European Union (EU) during the past two and a half years had imposed damages on Iran, urging the EU to compensate for the loss.

"I recommend to these few states to compensate the damage and apologize to the great Iranian nation for the issue, and they should know that Iranian nation's memory is very clear and sensitive and would bear all the events," he said.

Ahmadinejad made the comments as members of the U.N. Security Council were still deliberating on the council's next move on the Iranian nuclear issue.

The 15 members of the Security Council convened for about one hour last Friday to review a draft presidential statement urging Iran to suspend uranium enrichment activities, and they have been set to meet again on Tuesday for further discussions.

The Iranian nuclear issue has reached a critical stage since the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on March 8 handed over files of Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council after the agency's board of governors meeting.

The permanent five of the Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - have held several rounds of negotiations on the move over Iran but failed to reach consensus.

Russian and China fear that the hard-worded presidential statement drafted by Britain and France would run

counterproductive.

Iran has denounced the involvement of the Security Council, vowing never to give in to pressures and bullies.

Since the EU's involvement in the Iranian nuclear issue in October 2003, Iran had once suspended uranium enrichment and its peripheral activities to build confidence.

However, Tehran resumed uranium conversion, a precursor to the enrichment, last August and uranium research work in January, scuttling the negotiations with the EU.