Tehran has protested against the U. S. stance on the Iranian nuclear issue with a threat of resorting to force on the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.

The protest was voiced in a letter submitted to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan on Monday by Iranian ambassador and permanent representative Mohammad-Javad Zarif.

The letter said that "various senior officials of the United States have used false pretexts to make public and thinly-veiled threats of resorting to force against the Islamic Republic of Iran in total contempt of international law and the fundamental principles of the Charter of the UN."

The United States has accused Iran of developing nuclear weapons covertly and is reluctant to rule out military solution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

Repeating the accusation, US President George W. Bush on Monday said the United States would protect Israel with its military capability.

In the letter to the UN chief, Iran also defined the US threats as "resorting to unlawful, unacceptable and dangerous use of force " and a behavior showing its contempt for the UN Security Council and other multilateral mechanisms.

"The UN has a fundamental responsibility to reject those assertions and to arrest this trend," said the letter.

Iran's protests came also as the permanent five of the UN Security Council - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany held a meeting lasting for four and a half hours on next UN move on the Iranian nuclear program.

However, the so-called "Big-Six" reportedly failed to reach consensus due to the concern of Russia and China that a hard- worded presidential statement of the Security Council drafted by Britain and France would radicalize the tension.

The International Atomic Energy Agency on March 8 handed over files of Iran's nuclear program to the UN Security Council after the agency's board of governors meeting.

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

Source: Xinhua