TEHRAN, Iran — From the deck of Iran’s new guided-missile destroyer, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei denied Friday that Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons and criticized the U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf.

His comments came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran may currently be working on making a nuclear warhead, suggesting for the first time that the Islamic Republic had either resumed such work or never stopped at the time U.S. intelligence thought it did.

Additional Photos

Photo released by Iran shows Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, second right, during launching ceremony of the Jamaran guided-missile destroyer in the Persian Gulf on Friday. AP

Russia, which has been on the fence about whether to impose new U.N. sanctions against Iran, said it was ”very alarmed” over Tehran’s failure to prove its nuclear program is peaceful.

Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, said his country was not developing nuclear weapons because Islam forbids weapons of mass destruction.

”Because of this reason, we don’t have any belief in the atomic bomb and don’t pursue it,” he said after taking a tour of the destroyer Jamaran, which was launched Friday at a Gulf port.

State television, which broadcast the event, said the warship was the country’s first domestically built destroyer and a major technological leap for Iran’s naval industries.

Khamenei, who also is the commander in chief of Iran’s armed forces, said Washington was trying to frighten Iran’s Arab neighbors into buying U.S. weapons. He also said America and Israel were trying to sow divisions between Iran and Arab nations.

”The U.S. and the Zionist regime are trying to spread divisions to distract the attention of Islamic nations from the main enemies of the Islamic world, which are the U.S. and Israel,” Khamenei said in remarks broadcast on state TV.

Iran is weathering three sets of Security Council sanctions meant to punish its refusal to freeze its uranium enrichment program. Its recent rejection of a plan meant to strip it of most of its enriched stockpile plus its belated acknowledgment that it had been secretly building a new enrichment facility has increased sentiment for a fourth set.

The United States, Britain and France support such a measure, with Russia undecided and fellow permanent Security Council member China — which depends on Iran for much of its energy needs – opposed.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov expressed concern, saying, ”we are very alarmed, and we cannot accept that Iran is refusing to cooperate” with the IAEA.

His deputy later suggested Russia was against crippling sanctions.

”We find the term ‘paralyzing sanctions’ completely unacceptable. Sanctions should follow the aim of strengthening the regime of nuclear nonproliferation,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying by the Interfax news agency.

France and Germany, meanwhile, threatened to seek fresh sanctions in light of the new IAEA report, which was contrary to a U.S. intelligence assessment published three years ago that said Tehran appeared to have suspended such work in 2003.

Germany’s leading insurance companies – Munich Re AG and Allianz SE – also announced they would quit doing business in the Islamic republic after the International Atomic Energy Agency report.

Khamenei said the presence of foreign forces in the Persian Gulf ”disturbs security” in the region but Washington will fail to achieve its goals.

U.S. military officials said last month that Washington was deploying upgraded Patriot missiles in Arab nations in the region and more Navy ships in the Gulf capable of destroying missiles in flight. The Navy’s 5th Fleet is also based in the Arab nation of Bahrain, just across the Gulf from Iran.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited Qatar and Saudi Arabia this week to discuss Iran, warning that Tehran could set off a nuclear arms race in the Middle East if it chooses to develop atomic weapons.

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