PRESIDENT Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday that it was “too late” to stop Iran’s nuclear programme, and warned the US and its allies not to push for new UN sanctions.

Jun 6 2007 by Haydon Wood, Liverpool Daily Post

“We advise them not to play with the lion’s tail,” Ahmadinejad said, drawing applause from a room of reporters, Iranian officials and foreign dignitaries at a Tehran news conference.

“It is too late to stop the progress of Iran,”

Ahmadinejad said. “Iran has passed the point where they wanted Iran to stop.”

The UN Security Council is preparing to debate a third set of sanctions against the Islamic republic in response to Tehran’s refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for civilian energy or material for a bomb.

Asked about Ahmadinejad’s comment that it was too late to halt Iran’s nuclear push, US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said: “It isn’t.”

“He could make the decision today to take up the reasonable offer to negotiate with the rest of the world so that Iran can make peaceful nuclear energy and not have a cloud hanging over the country,” McCormack said.