The upcoming Iranian war games -- codenamed "The Great Prophet 2" -- are due to be carried out till Nov. 11 in the Gulf waters, the Sea of Oman and 14 provinces of the country, Safavi told a press conference.

The maneuvers will be staged by the IRGC's air, ground and navy forces as well as the Basij militia troops, he said.

In April, Iran launched a large-scale military exercise, the biggest in years. During the game, with the codename of "The Great Prophet," Iran said that it tested advanced weapons including missiles and torpedoes.

On Sunday, the U.S. navy said that vessels from the United States, Britain, France, Italy, Australia and Bahrain began a naval training exercise off the Iranian coast in the Gulf aimed at blocking smuggling of nuclear weapons and arms proliferation.

The maneuvers were being held under the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) proposed by U.S. President George W. Bush in May, 2003. Bahrain's participation marks the first time a Gulf nation joins a PSI exercise.

Iranian government spokesman Gholam-Hossein Elham on Monday urged foreign military forces not to damage Gulf peace, saying durable peace and security would be restored through collective cooperation of all countries of the region.

However, Iran was not bothered about the military maneuvers because the country "is powerful in all fields," the official IRNA news agency quoted Elham as saying.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran will not accept threats. Iran is a strong and powerful state and will not take maneuvers as a threat," he said.

Liu said some new situation emerged in Iran nuclear issue, and China will continue to consult with other members of UN Security Council on relevant issues.

Iran confirmed to have launched a second cascade of centrifuges last Sunday and vowed to conduct peaceful utilization of nuclear energy.

The United States and other western countries are calling for a draft UN resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran.

He urged Iran "not to drag out the clarification of questions" the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has regarding its nuclear program.

The IAEA "has unfortunately been unable to get clear answers to quite a few questions related to Iran's previous nuclear programs, which had been implemented without this organization's awareness," Ivanov said.

The United States is seeking to impose sanctions on Iran through the UN Security Council on the grounds that Tehran is developing a nuclear-weapons program under the garb of a civilian-use program. Iran, however, says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a telephone conversation on Monday that Moscow favored further talks on Iran's nuclear program.

Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States offered a package in June offering incentives and multilateral talks to Iran in exchange for a freeze on its uranium enrichment work.

Tehran has said that it wants talks with the major powers, but will not suspend its nuclear work as a prerequisite.

Iran, which failed to meet a UN Security Council deadline for suspending its enrichment work by Aug. 31, said on Friday it had fed gas into a second cascade of centrifuges at a uranium enrichment facility.

"She put forward the proposal that we should try to work extremely hard to get that resolution passed as quickly as possible," Burns said.

"We are working very hard at the UN Security Council to push for a resolution," he said.

The UN Security Council adopted a resolution in late July, urging Tehran to suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities by Aug. 31, including research and development, or face international sanctions.

However, Iran insisted that it would not step back on its legal nuclear rights, warning the West not to imagine that the country would suspend uranium enrichment for even one day.

He highlighted that while the Islamic Republic fulfilled the regulations established by the Non-Proliferation Treaty and encouraged dialogue, those nations made a mistake and submitted the nuclear file to the UN Security Council.

We hope they do not make another mistake, Elham stated.

The Iranian spokesperson asserted that those mistakes fed the nuclear disagreement to which Teheran responded with a transparent position within the bounds of international law.

He ratified that Iranian authorities are simply defending their right to continue a peaceful atomic program.

The US and some western nations have accused Iran of enriching uranium for the fabrication of mass extermination weapons.

China and Russia, of the five permanent members of the Security Council, maintain a conciliatory position, while the rest plus Germany seek punitive measures.

"I wish to underline that these systems cannot be used in offensive operations," Sergei Ivanov told Russia Today television in an interview broadcast early Wednesday. "Secondly, they have a limited use as they are capable of protecting a small part of the Iranian territory."

Moscow has refused to bow to Western pressure and cancel its US 700 million contract to sell 29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, which was signed last December.