Washington has hit a dead-end over Iran's nuclear dossier, lacking enough proof to demand UN sanctions and too bogged down in Iraq for a military strike, Iran's President Mohammad Khatami has said.
Washington is pushing the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to report Iran to the sanction-imposing UN Security Council, accusing Tehran of a clandestine weapons programme.
"I assure you that the Americans have no evidence to prove their claims," Khatami told reporters at a news conference on Saturday.
Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful and is intended to meet booming domestic demand for electricity.
Khatami added any US attack on Iran would be "suicidal".
"The Americans have to deal first with their problems in Iraq before taking military action against Iran," the reformist president said.
"I believe the Americans are still rational enough not to repeat their mistakes," he added, referring to the attack on Iraq.
Iranian officials have said that Tehran's case will not be sent to the UN Security Council at next month's IAEA board of governors meeting in Vienna.
The IAEA's new Iran report is due to be circulated to the board of governors in the coming days.
Khatami called for the board of governors to take Iran's dossier off the agenda but suggested he was being optimistic.
"I doubt that Iran's case is going to be closed at the next IAEA meeting," he told the reporters.
Diplomats in Vienna reckoned the report would be inconclusive and would neither confirm nor reject the view that Iran has a secret military nuclear programme.
The IAEA is probing the origin of traces of enriched uranium found at some Iranian sites and Iran's interest in advanced P2 centrifuges, which can be used to make bomb-grade uranium twice as fast as its less advanced P1 centrifuges.
Iran says the traces of enriched uranium were caused by contamination from devices bought on the black market. It also says its work on P2 centrifuges, has not advanced beyond the preliminary stages.