Ahmadinejad declares victory after US atom report

       Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, working to defend US strategy on Iran, questioned the openess of the Iranian government on Wednesday after its president said a new US intelligence review concluding his country has stopped developing nuclear weapons was a "declaration of victory." Rice declined to respond to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remark, but told reporters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa that the public release of the National Intelligence Estimate showed the Bush administration was committed to transparent democracy, while Iran was not. A US intelligence report saying Tehran does not have an active nuclear weapons program will be a factor in deciding whether new sanctions on Iran are needed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. "We will assess the situation on proposals for a new resolution in the United Nations Security Council on the basis of (several) factors, including the publication by the United States of data showing that Iran does not have a military nuclear program," Lavrov told a news conference.The United States said it would continue pushing for a third UN sanctions resolution. Two sets of UN sanctions have been imposed so far because Iran has refused to stop uranium enrichment, a process that has both military and civilian uses. China, which has a UN Security Council veto and agreed only reluctantly to earlier sanctions, said "things have changed" with the NIE report. France and Britain, two other permanent council members, said pressure should be kept up. "If you want to start a new political game, the united Iranian nation will resist you and will not retreat one step from its program," the president said. "We will continue our nuclear program and we will not give it up." Ahmadinejad said Iran was ready for talks that were "honest and cooperative" on the nuclear program, repeating Iran's long-standing call for dialogue to end the row. (13,40)