Tehran:
Iran is to file a formal complaint with the UN against the United States after President Barack Obama excepted Iran from a pledge not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them, the Foreign Ministry said on Sunday.
According to the semi-official Fars news agency, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said that Obama's implicit threat to use nuclear weapons against Iran was a "threat to global peace and security".
Earlier on Sunday, some 222 lawmakers of Iran's 290-seat parliament called on the government to file the complaint.
Parliament speaker Ali Larijani said Obama's language was proof he was "pursuing the arrogant and dominating approach of the past but under the cover of public-deceiving gestures".
Obama on Tuesday announced his administration's new nuclear strategy, including a vow not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them.
Iran, however, was pointedly excepted from that pledge, along with North Korea, because Washington accuses them of not cooperating with the international community on non-proliferation standards.
The new nuclear strategy turns the US focus away from the Cold War threats and instead aims to stop the spread of atomic weapons to rogue states or militant groups.
The US and some of its allies accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons, but Tehran has denied the charges, saying its nuclear programme is peaceful.
Pressuring Iran in its standoff with the West is a particular focus of the new US nuclear strategy.
The exception from the non-use pledge represents a warning to Tehran.
But also, the new guidelines aim to show Washington is serious about reducing its own arsenal and about gathering world support for stricter safeguards against nuclear proliferation - a move aimed at further isolating Iran diplomatically.
US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a Sunday news programme that Iran's claimed advancements in nuclear technology should be taken "with more than a grain of salt."
On Friday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiled a third generation of centrifuge that will be used to accelerate a uranium enrichment program that is of central concern to the US and its allies.
Enrichment is used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants, but it also provides a possible pathway to nuclear weapons development.
Three sets of UN sanctions have failed to pressure Iran to stop enrichment. The United States is leading the push for a fourth round of penalties.
"But in fact their belligerence is helping to make our case every single day," Clinton told ABC's "This Week" in an interview that was taped on Friday but released Sunday.
"Countries that might have had doubts about Iranian intentions, who might have even questioned whether Iran was seeking nuclear weapons, are having those doubts dispelled as much by the evidence we present as by what comes out of the leadership of Iran."
As for Iran's nuclear ambitions, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates says it will take a combination of economic pressure, better missile defence and cooperation with Mideast countries to rein in Tehran.
"What has to happen is the Iranian government has to decide that it's own security is better served by not having nuclear weapons than by having them," Gates said.
Iran will file a formal complaint with the UN against the US after President Barack Obama excluded Iran from a pledge not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.
Obama announced America's new nuclear strategy on Tuesday, including a vow not to use nuclear weapons against countries that do not have them.
Iran, however, was pointedly excepted from that pledge, along with North Korea, because Washington accuses them of not cooperating with the international community on non-proliferation standards.