The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Tehran

Iran has accused the United States of double standards following a nuclear deal with India, state television said on Saturday, just before a deadline set by the West in a dispute over Tehran's own atomic ambitions.

Western powers gave Iran two weeks from July 19 to respond to their offer to hold off on imposing more U.N. sanctions on Iran if Tehran would freeze any expansion of its nuclear work.

That would suggest a deadline of Saturday, although Russia, one of the six powers facing Iran, has opposed a deadline and Iran dismissed the idea of having two weeks to reply.

The West accuses Iran of seeking to build nuclear warheads under cover of a civilian power programme. Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, denies the charge.

"We have not had any discussion (or) agreement of the so-called timeline of two weeks," Iran's representative to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told the state Press TV satellite station.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was due to arrive in Tehran on Saturday, a few weeks after he said he would respond to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's request and use his good ties with Iran to help resolve its stand-off with the West.

Assad was expected to meet Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other senior officials during a two-day visit.