Iran is embroiled in a deepening standoff with the West over its nuclear ambitions. Major powers fear it is seeking to develop atomic weapons but Tehran says it wants only to generate electricity so it can export more of its oil and gas.

Ahead of a meeting of the United States and five other big powers over the issue in London, U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Tehran was facing growing isolation in the world and called for a diplomatic solution.

“We have a choice of confrontation or diplomacy. We prefer diplomacy,” he said. “We would like to see a diplomatic engagement.”

The United Nations has already imposed two sets of sanctions on the oil-rich Islamic state since December over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, which can be used to fuel power stations or make bombs.

The London meeting is expected to review renewed contact between Iran and the European Union and whether a third, tougher sanctions resolution might be needed.

But Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, while suggesting his country in general favored negotiations, said Tehran would not retreat “one iota” from what it sees as its right to develop a civilian nuclear energy industry.

“The world should know that ... Iran is among those countries who have the industrial (nuclear) fuel cycle,” he told a cheering crowd in the central province of Kerman.

Iran said last month it could now make nuclear fuel on an industrial scale, a move that would take it closer to developing atomic weapons if it wanted to. Western experts expressed doubt about the announcement.

The country aims to have 3,000 centrifuges running at its main enrichment plant, Natanz, by the end of this month. That could be enough to refine uranium for one bomb within a year.

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