TEHRAN (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday any country that tried to impose new sanctions on Iran would regret its actions, as the United States and Russia voiced shared concern about Tehran's nuclear program.
Ahmadinejad was speaking a day after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought oil giant Saudi Arabia's support to help win Chinese backing for additional sanctions. Clinton said a new round of sanctions should target Iran's Revolutionary Guards.
"Iran will retaliate ... of course, if somebody acts against Iran our response will definitely be firm enough ... (to) make them regretful," Ahmadinejad told a news conference, without elaborating. "Sanctions will not harm Iran."
In Washington, the White House on Tuesday would not rule out any options -- including a military option -- for dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"I wouldn't rule out anything," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told a news briefing, adding that Iran's refusal to engage on its nuclear program was proof that the program "is not of the means and type that they have tried to convince others that it's for."
A joint letter from the United States, Russia and France expressed concern about Tehran's nuclear work and said its decision to escalate uranium enrichment -- rather than implement a nuclear fuel swap -- was unjustified.
Ahmadinejad said talks were still under way on the proposed fuel exchange and the issue was not yet closed.
He did not give details, but Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was visiting Tehran on Tuesday to try to salvage the U.N.-brokered uranium exchange deal amid growing calls for new sanctions against Iran.
"We have passed our own original proposals. We have brought up some ideas to unlock the impasse," Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Burak Ozugergin told Reuters in Ankara.
The State Department said it was not aware that any talks were under way, and repeated that any negotiations would have to take place with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which brokered the fuel swap proposal.
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