President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Saturday vowed Iran would defend the aims of its nuclear programme during any negotiations, as the European Union gave Tehran extra time to show it was serious about talks.
And as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan began two days of talks in Iran, a top Iranian nuclear official warned that the country might reconsider its co-operation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
"The people will not give in by one iota in their desire to use nuclear energy for peaceful ends and officials have the duty to defend these objectives with firmness during negotiations," Ahmadinejad said.
"The Iranian people will defend their absolute right to use civilian nuclear energy in its entirety and will not step back," he said in a speech in West Azarbaijan province.
Iran has defied Western demands to suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make nuclear fuel and, in highly extended form, the explosive core of an atomic bomb.
"We are going to start in the coming days and I hope it will be very short," Solana told reporters in Lappeenranta, Finland, while declining to set a deadline.