By Ali Akbar Dareini THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran’s president lashed out yesterday at the United States and vowed to resist the pressure of “bully countries” as European nations circulated a draft resolution urging that Tehran be brought before the U.N. Security Council for its nuclear activities.

In a speech to thousands of supporters hours after President Bush’s State of the Union address, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad derided the United States as a “hollow superpower” that is “tainted with the blood of nations” and said Tehran would continue its nuclear program.

“Nuclear energy is our right, and we will resist until this right is fully realized,” Ahmadinejad told the crowd in the southern Iran city of Bushehr, the site of Iran’s only nuclear power plant.

“Our nation can’t give in to the coercion of some bully countries who imagine they are the whole world and see themselves equal to the entire globe,” he added.

The crowd responded with chants of “Nuclear energy is our right!”

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said at a news conference that it would halt intrusive U.N. inspections of its nuclear facilities and resume large-scale enrichment of uranium if it is taken before the U.N. Security Council.

Larijani also said Iran remains committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, despite calls from hard-line newspapers to withdraw from the agreement if the International Atomic Energy Agency refers Iran to the Security Council on Thursday, as expected.

He added: “In case the issue is reported or referred to the Security Council, we will have to stop implementation of the Additional Protocol” – a procedure that allows IAEA inspectors to carry out intrusive searches of a country’s nuclear facilities without warning.