TEHRAN, October 29 (RIA Novosti) - Tehran welcomes Russia's position on the peaceful settlement of the Iran nuclear issue, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Sunday.

Iran has been at the center of an international dispute this year over its nuclear ambitions. Some countries suspect the Islamic Republic of pursuing a covert weapons program, but Tehran has consistently denied the claims and says it needs nuclear energy for civilian needs.

Hosseini said the positions of Russia and China on the Iran nuclear issue differed from the position of European states. Russia believed sanctions against Iran would not be imposed and the doors for negotiations were still open.

The UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1696 July 31, demanding that Iran suspend uranium enrichment by August 31 as a condition for negotiations on a package of proposals offered to Iran by six world powers (Russia, China, Britain, France, the United States and Germany). But Iran refused to fulfill this demand, saying its nuclear research program was meant for peaceful purposes and complied with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

Three European states (France, Germany and Britain) proposed earlier this week a new draft UN resolution on Iran, which included measures to ban the sale of missile and nuclear technologies to the country, freeze Tehran's military bank accounts and impose visa restrictions for officials linked to the nuclear industry.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the draft new UN resolution on Iran offered by the three European states failed to correspond to the position earlier coordinated by the six world powers mediating Tehran's controversial nuclear program.