Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that Russia was "very alarmed" by Iran's failure to cooperate with the IAEA after the UN nuclear agency said it feared that Tehran might be working to develop a nuclear missile.

"We are very alarmed, and we cannot accept this, that Iran is refusing to cooperate with the IAEA," Lavrov told Ekho Moskvy radio.

"For about 20 years, the Iranian leadership carried out its clandestine nuclear program without reporting it to the IAEA," he said. "I do not understand why there was such secrecy."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko hinted that talks on a UN sanctions resolution could start soon.

But Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabko reiterated Russia's position that it would not block an export of S-300 air defense missile systems to Iran.

(Reuters)