Tehran, Feb. 18 (Reuters): Iran will not agree to suspend uranium enrichment as demanded by the UN Security Council, which has given Tehran until February 21 to halt sensitive atomic work, the foreign ministry said today.

The UN slapped sanctions on Iran in December, barring the transfer of sensitive materials and know-how to the Islamic republic’s nuclear programme. It threatened further action if Iran did not heed UN demands.

“Suspension is unacceptable. There are no grounds to do that. This issue belongs to the past. There is no legal and logical justification for that,” spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a weekly news conference.

Iran previously suspended enrichment work under an agreement with European states that broke down in 2005.

Other top Iranian officials have also insisted Iran will press ahead with its nuclear programme, which the West believes is a clandestine programme to build atomic bombs. Iran denies this, saying it only wants to make fuel for power plants.

“Nuclear energy is the country’s future and destiny,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest authority, was quoted by the Etemad-e Melli newspaper as saying.

“If a nation does not care about its energy sources in the future, it must rely on arrogant powers (the West),” he said.

Iran sits on the world’s second biggest oil and gas reserves but says it wants to build a network of nuclear power plants to prepare for the day when its energy supplies run out and to ensure it maximises energy exports in the meantime.

Visiting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad renewed his country’s support for Iran’s nuclear activities, saying it was entitled to them as a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

State television said that, in a joint Iranian-Syrian statement,“Syria expressed its support for Iran’s peaceful nuclear programme”.