The language would be similar to a statement issued last month by foreign ministers of NAM member states in Malaysia, the diplomats told The Associated Press.

That declaration "reaffirmed the basic and inalienable right" of all countries to develop, produce and use atomic energy "for peaceful purposes, without any discrimination and in conformity with their respective legal obligations."

Iran says it has a right to enrich uranium for purposes of generating electricity under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The United States and its allies assert the claim is a cover for attempts to develop a weapons program using highly enriched uranium in the core of nuclear warheads.

When asked Monday if Iran would suspend enrichment for the sake of negotiations, spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham repeated the government line that enrichment is Iran's "obvious right."

With the group statement decidedly favouring Iran, the United States and its allies were focusing on key countries with clout among nonaligned states such as Brazil, India and Argentina that have sided with them in the past, urging them to put pressure on Iran in individual statements to accept an offer for talks on its nuclear program, said the diplomats.

One of them familiar with confidential consultations among nonaligned countries said those backing Iran's stance engaged in a "shouting match" with those leaning toward the western line on Monday.

The western push already suffered a setback Monday with revelations that China and Russia were not prepared to join America and its European allies in a unified message insisting that Tehran halt enrichment.

Their reluctance reflected the East-West divide among the six world powers that just two weeks ago appeared to be in agreement about how to engage Iran over enrichment and to persuade it to give up technology that could be used to make nuclear arms.

Resistance by Russia and China to tough UN action contributed to Washington's decision last month to reverse decades of policy and agree to join in multinational talks with Iran - if Tehran accepts a package of rewards, freezes enrichment during the talks and places a long-term moratorium on such activity.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett announced at the end of high-level talks in Vienna on June 2 that all five permanent Security Council members plus Germany supported the joint approach on engaging Iran.

But the signs of discord Monday reflected continuing differences despite the public show of unity.

Other diplomats spoke of more potential divisions. China, Russia and possibly Germany might push to allow Iran some tightly controlled small-scale enrichment rather than see talks founder. Russia and China also might balk at enforcing selective UN sanctions on Iranian officials and activities.

But long-term, verifiable suspension of Iranian enrichment is a "red line" for the United States and its key western allies, one diplomat said.

While the IAEA meeting is not expected to formally focus on the Iranian nuclear standoff until Thursday the issue dominated the meeting from its opening Monday.

"We have made this very clear also in our discussion with our American colleague, Condoleezza Rice. We will discuss this also very openly at the summit next week," she added, referring to the June 21-22 EU-US summit in Vienna.

Senior US officials meanwhile tried to ease the latest public relations nightmare over the camp, already the focus of previous calls for closure from Europe, the United Nations and human rights advocates.

Camp guards found three inmates -- two Saudis and a Yemeni -- hanged from ceilings of cells in the maximum security section of the camp at a US Naval base in Cuba on Saturday.

Lawyers for some of the Guantanamo Bay detainees on Monday called a press conference in Washington to decry what they said were dire conditions at the camp and to berate the Bush administration.

On Sunday, Guantanamo Bay commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris said of the prisoners: "They are smart, they are creative, they are committed."

"They have no regard to life, neither ours nor their own. And I believe this was not an act of desperation, rather an act of asymmetric warfare waged against us."

Colleen Graffy, deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, told BBC's Newshour on Sunday: "Taking their own lives was not necessary, but it certainly is a good PR (public relations) move."

Gitanjali Gutierrez, a lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is aiding some detainees, said, "to characterize the suicides as an act of warfare to me is offensive, and really shows a disregard for human life and for humanity which is rampant in Guantanamo."

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack took a more conciliatory line, as attention shifted to how the episode would tarnish the already battered image of the United States in the Middle East.

"I would say that we have serious concern anytime anybody takes their own life," McCormack told reporters, adding that a Defense Department investigation was under way.

"I would not characterize it as a PR stunt."

Lawyers for the Guantanamo inmates accused the US government of callousness, saying the prisoners at the notorious jail for terror suspects were desperate and depressed.

The deaths were predictable, one lawyer said, while a medical human rights group warned of more suicides to come.

Leonard Rubinstein, executive director of the Physicians for Human Rights group, joined the Guantanamo Bay lawyers at a press conference to say inmates were being pushed to the brink by conditions.

"Military officials and the Bush administration have refused any independent and transparent medical evaluation of these detainees. We can expect more suicides," he said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said earlier Monday it would send a team to Guantanamo Bay.

"This week there will be a visit by an ICRC team to Guantanamo, as we've done in the past when there were particular incidents," including a riot by detainees last month, spokesman Vincent Lusser told AFP.

Washington does not acknowledge the more than 450 detainees in Guantanamo are prisoners of war or entitled to the full protection of the Geneva Conventions. The United States suspects them of being Al-Qaeda members and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan in late 2001.

The deaths, amid a prisoner hunger strike, were the first successful suicides after repeated attempts at the camp.

"The effort didn't work to do a joint statement in Vienna," a senior European diplomat told AFP.

But the diplomat said the six world powers "have never managed to get an EU-3 (Britain, France and Germany) plus three statement in Vienna," at meetings of the watchdog
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which oversees cooperation by nations with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

A vigorous debate on Iran but no resolution is expected at this week's IAEA meeting of its 35-nation board of governors, with the Iranian issue expected to come up Wednesday or Thursday.

The EU-3 are expected to issue a statement of their own, with each of the six countries that have made the offer to Iran issuing individual statements.

Iranian allies Russia and China are both reluctant to threaten sanctions against Iran for nuclear work which the United States says show that Tehran wants to develop atomic weapons.

But the two nations closed ranks with the three
European Union powers plus the United States in offering Iran talks on trade, security and technology benefits if it would suspend uranium enrichment, which makes nuclear reactor fuel but also atom bomb material.

Iran is currently examining the benefits package and is expected to respond by the end of the month.

"This has no influence on the overall situation," a Western diplomat said about the developments in Vienna, although this diplomat and others admitted that Iran would try to exploit any division, perceived or real, among the world powers.

But delegates from several non-aligned nations, of which China is a member, clearly do want to make a point, as they are preparing a statement that supports Iran's right to enrichment, as enshrined in the NPT.

A non-aligned diplomat said his group would "hold to a statement made by non-aligned foreign ministers in Kuala Lumpur in May," that backs Iran's right to enrich.

Diplomats said Washington was fighting to prevent non-aligned states on the IAEA board from issuing such a statement, which also is an expression of non-aligned concern over a US proposal to have nuclear fuel available in a multilateral reserve so that countries do not develop the ability to enrich uranium on their own.

The non-aligned diplomat said the bloc was planning a statement that would renew a message first issued May 30 in Malaysia, when the the Non Aligned Movement affirmed the right to atomic energy and opposed any attack on nuclear facilities.

"The Americans are not happy with that statement and told that to the NAM members," the diplomat said.

The United States wanted the bloc, which numbers some 16 mostly developing nations on the IAEA board, to stick to a February IAEA resolution calling on Iran to suspend uranium enrichment.

"The US point of view is that the Iranians should not be allowed to feel relaxed about enrichment, that the goal is to keep the pressure on them," the diplomat said.

A senior US State Department official said Washington did not want Tehran to press on with its enrichment activites while drawing out negotiations with the rest of the world.

With Iran being called on to answer the benefits offer within weeks, "we don't want the Iranian authorities to be considering this indefinitely," a senior US State Department official said.

"We don't want to be back into a situation we've seen before where they say they are prepared to negotiate but at the same time they just continue with their nuclear activities," the official said.

Russia hopes that talks based on the package of proposals will take place and lead to a decision securing Iran's legal right to peaceful nuclear technology and guarantee nuclear nonproliferation, Kamynin said.

Last week, European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana presented a new package of incentives, agreed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany, to get Iran to halt nuclear enrichment.

The new package contains economic and political incentives, including talks with the United States, Western help to build nuclear reactors for Iran, a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel and permission for Iran to buy aircraft and spare parts if Tehran suspends uranium enrichment.

Kamynin said the package contained proposals which, if implemented, would expand the opportunities for development of modern nuclear energy in Iran with stronger interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency "to create an atmosphere of trust and confidence in the peaceful nature of Iran's efforts."

Iran's top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said the new proposal contained both "positive steps" and "ambiguities." Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Saturday Iran might make its own proposals, either in the form of amendments to the six-nation offer or a counter-package.

The group said it carried out the bombing as a blow against the police "for acting as an instrument to further Mrs. Arroyo's cheating and hiding of the truth from the people."

The group further claimed responsibility for previous bombings such as a blast at an office building in Manila on June 6, an explosion outside the home of an Arroyo ally last week and two simultaneous bomb blasts in police stations on June 11.

However the group denied it was behind a bomb blast in Lipa City south of Manila that injured nine people on June 11, insisting that it would not target civilians.

Arroyo has been hounded by allegations that she cheated to win the May 2004 elections. She has denied the accusations and survived an impeachment attempt last year.

Police said the bomb exploded inside a derelict police vehicle that was parked near one of the NCRPO offices, causing little damage and no injuries.

NCRPO chief director Vidal Querol said security was tightened inside the camp after the explosion and an investigation had been launched.

He would not confirm media reports that Taong Bayan at Kawal was behind the bombing. Police spokesmen said they would treat the statements of the group "with prudent suspicion."

The blast in Lipa City in Batangas province is being looked at differently and could be related to a bomb blast that injured the Batangas governor and killed two of his aides on June 1.

The Philippines has been on heightened alert since last Friday as the country celebrated Independence Day.

"Measures to tackle piracy and terrorism are important and we need Indonesia's cooperation," Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi told reporters after his cabinet approved the plan.

"Many countries in the region are having trouble dealing with it. It's better to tackle it cooperating with other countries," said Koizumi.

Japan has been slowly shedding its absolute pacifism which was enshrined in the constitution imposed by the United States after Tokyo's defeat in World War II.

Japan in 1967 banned arms exports to countries that were communist, under UN sanctions or engaged in international conflict. In 1976 it went further and barred all arms exports regardless of the destination.

However, Japan ended the ban in 2004 and said it would decide on exports on a case-by-case basis. The move was designed to allow exports to its close ally, the United States, with which Japan is building missile defenses against communist neighbor North Korea.

The donation, which is worth 1.92 billion yen (16.8 million dollars), comes in response to a 2003 request by Indonesia's then president Megawati Sukarnoputri, a Japanese foreign ministry statement said.

The 27-meter (89-foot) boats have a speed of 30 knots and will be used by Indonesian marine police.

The two nations are expected to reach an official agreement on the donation in Jakarta on Wednesday, ministry officials said.

About one-third of global trade passes through the Malacca Strait, which also accounts for more than 10 percent of the pirate attacks around the world.

Japan broke a major post-World War II taboo in 2003 by sending troops to Iraq on a reconstruction mission.