"This date of Oct. 31 is not a criteria for us because we have not accepted this resolution," Ali Akbar Salehi said during a crucial visit to Iran by a team of top IAEA inspectors. "But we will continue to cooperate with the IAEA and will try to make it so that the answers to outstanding issues will be given as quickly as possible," he added. In a resolution on September 12, the IAEA's board of governors gave Iran until October 31 to guarantee it was not developing and would not develop atomic weapons under the cover of its civil nuclear program.

The resolution, passed after heavy US lobbying, also called on Iran to sign an additional protocol of the UN nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and implement it immediately and unconditionally. An IAEA team is currently in Iran for what the agency's chief Mohamed El-Baradei has described as a "decisive" round of inspections and talks aimed at clearing up a number of "outstanding issues" related to Iran's nuclear program.

The US alleges Iran is using a nuclear power program as a cover for weapons development, a charge Iran has fiercely denied. But a failure by Tehran to meet the deadline could see it being declared in violation of the NPT and the matter could be passed to the UN Security Council, which could in turn decide to sanction Iran.

Although casting aside the deadline - branded by a string of top officials here as part of a US-Israeli plot to undermine Iran - Salahi said Tehran was determined to continue its cooperation with the IAEA, further dampening fears that Iran could pull out of the NPT altogether. "We have accomplished a number of things by going beyond our obligations (under the NPT) and as long as there are outstanding issues, we have promised to continue as before," he said.