VIENNA, September 12 (IslamOnline.net & News agencies) - The Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) walked out in protest Friday, September 12, when the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog imposed a deadline for Tehran to provide full details of its nuclear program.

"We reject this ultimatum," Iranian ambassador Ali Akbar Salehi told the IAEA's 35-nation board of governors before storming out of a board meeting on whether to issue Tehran with an ultimatum.

The IAEA went ahead and told Iran to prove by October 31 it was not secretly developing atomic weapons.

Salehi was quoted by Agence France-Presse (AFP) as saying the IAEA descended into "political dialogue" and said the ultimatum spelled "disaster" for the nuclear watchdog.

"(We) have no choice but to have a deep review of our existing level and extent of engagement with the agency," he warned, according to a copy of his speech to the IAEA board.

Salehi rejected U.S charges that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program and accused Washington of entertaining "the idea of invasion of yet another territory as they aim to re-engineer and reshape the entire Middle East region."

"(The ultimatum) targets the very core of our commitments and the current course of ever-accelerating cooperation," he complained.

"For the last 24 years, Iran been subject to the most severe series of sanctions and export restrictions on material and technology for peaceful nuclear technology," Salehi continued.

"So our peaceful program had no choice but to become discreet."

A western diplomat said the U.S.-led alliance had won support from 25 of the 35-member board to urge Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program and reveal whether it is enriching uranium to weapons-grade level by the end of October.

The United States has had firm support from key allies France and Germany, which disagreed sharply with Washington in the showdown over Iraq's alleged arms violations which ultimately led to the invasion of Iraq.

The United States has garnered broad support to impose the deadline on Tehran after some intense behind-the-scenes lobbying ahead of Friday's vote.

Kharazi called on IAEA board to resist U.S. pressure

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has said at stake was a possible declaration by the body that Iran was in non-compliance with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

If Iran had not provided the requested information by the deadline, ElBaradei might have to tell the board he was "not able to verify non-diversion" of nuclear material from peaceful uses, diplomats told AFP.

The words "non-diversion" were also used in February when North Korea was declared by the IAEA to have breached international safeguard agreements and the matter was referred to the Security Council.

Iran Friday called on the IAEA governors to resist U.S. pressure to set a deadline, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported.

"We hope the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency will not give in to political pressures," it reported Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi as saying on his return from a trip abroad.

Another diplomat had earlier said it was uncertain how the vote on the three-page resolution would take place because Iran could demand that the board votes paragraph by paragraph.

If the members voted in this fashion, it could "expose fissures" in the carefully-crafted support assembled by the United States, he said.

"It may break the coalition," the diplomat said.

The compromise text, submitted by Canada, Australia and Japan, remains tough, saying it is "essential and urgent" for Iran to "remedy all failures" in compliance reported by the IAEA since inspections began in February, after Iran was revealed to (possess) more nuclear facilities than thought.

But the language of the resolution has been toned down, "requesting" rather than "calling" for Iran to sign an additional protocol to the NPT to allow IAEA inspectors to make surprise visits to suspect sites.

Cuba and Iran are all but certain to vote against the resolution, and Russia and China are expected to abstain.

But South Africa supports the resolution, a step the United States hopes will lead non-aligned countries to sign on, diplomats said.

Russia is still showing some support by abstaining from the vote even though it feels, as a source at the Russian atomic energy ministry said in Moscow, that Iran must "be given room to maneuver so they are not pushed into a corner like North Korea and withdraw from the NPT."