Iran rejects U.S. demand to halt atom work

By Parisa Hafezi and Edmund Blair

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran will not halt sensitive nuclear work as demanded by U.S. President Barack Obama's administration, a close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday.

The new administration has said Obama would break from his predecessor by pursuing direct talks with Tehran but has also warned Iran to expect more pressure if it did not meet the U.N. Security Council demand to halt uranium enrichment.

Adviser to the president Aliakbar Javanfekr told Reuters Iran had no intention of stopping its nuclear activities, which the United States and other Western powers suspect are a front to build nuclear arms.

"We have no non-peaceful activities to suspend. All our activities are peaceful and under the supervision of the IAEA," he said in an interview in government offices in Tehran,.

Asked about U.N. resolutions demanding Iran suspend uranium enrichment, he said: "We have passed that stage. We have rejected resolutions. Those resolutions were issued under U.S. pressure. We work in the framework of international laws."

"Obama should act realistically to avoid repeating (George W.) Bush's mistakes," he added.

Three rounds of U.N. sanctions have been imposed on Iran for not stopping and the Bush administration had sought a fourth.

Iran has repeatedly dismissed the impact of sanctions, and Javanfekr echoed this by saying sanctions were "ineffective."