TEHRAN, Iran (AP) – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed back over the U.S. military buildup in the Gulf, saying Thursday that Iran is ready for any possibility in the standoff over its nuclear program.

The president made clear he was not backing down in his tough rhetoric toward the United States, despite criticism at home. Conservatives and reformists alike have openly challenged Ahmadinejad’s nuclear diplomacy tactics, many saying his fiery anti-Western remarks are doing more harm than good.

Ahmadinejad said their calls for compromise echo “the words of the enemy.”

At the same time, Ahmadinejad’s top national security official, Ali Larijani, sharply denounced U.S. policy in Iraq, saying Washington is fueling Shiite-Sunni hatred.

Washington has accused Iran of backing militants fueling Iraq’s violence, increasing tensions amid the dispute over Iran’s nuclear program, which the U.S. says aims to produce nuclear weapons.

The United States sent an aircraft carrier to the Gulf this week – the second to deploy in the region – a buildup that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said was intended to impress on Iran that the four-year war in Iraq has not made America vulnerable.

In an apparent reaction to the deployment, Ahmadinejad vowed Thursday that Iran would not back down over its nuclear program, which Tehran says is being developed only to produce energy.

“Today, with the grace of God, we have gone through the arduous passes and we are ready for anything in this path,” state-run television quoted the Iranian leader as saying.

The U.N. Security Council recently imposed limited sanctions to punish Iran for defying a resolution demanding that it suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can produce material to fuel nuclear reactors or, at purer concentrations, the core of nuclear weapons.

In Paris, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, said he was concerned the sanctions could escalate Iran’s standoff with Western powers.

“I don’t think sanctions will resolve the issue … Sanctions in my view could lead to escalation on both sides,” he warned.

ElBaradei said the pressure has failed to break a consensus in Iran that the oil-rich nation needs to master the complex process of uranium enrichment. Iran this week said it is moving toward large-scale enrichment involving 3,000 centrifuges, which spin uranium gas into enriched material.

A diplomat and a U.N. official in Vienna said Thursday that much, but not all, of the hardware needed for the installation of the centrifuges was now in place at the Natanz facility designated to house Tehran’s industrial-scale enrichment program.

The two – who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential information – emphasized that the facility had been ready for some time, and there was no sign that actual work on putting in the centrifuges would begin at any particular date.

ElBaradei called for a resumption of talks with Tehran, including the possibility of a French negotiator. “My worry right now is that each side is sticking to its guns,” the International Atomic Energy Agency chief said. “We need someone to reach out.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said this week that now is not the time for the United States to talk to Iran, adding that Tehran does not appear ready to accept a conditional U.S. offer to join European talks over its nuclear program.

ElBaradei warned that only applying pressure could prompt the Islamic republic to follow the path of North Korea, which kicked out U.N. inspectors and pulled out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 2003 and then conducted its first nuclear weapons test last October.

“My priority is to keep Iran inside the system,” he said.

An Iranian Foreign Ministry delegation arrived in North Korea on Thursday, the communist nation’s media reported. North Korea, like Iran, is facing intense international pressure to give up its nuclear weapons programs.

In Iran, two newspapers have pointedly criticized the president’s handling of the nuclear issue.

“Your language is so offensive and contains not very nice words that inculcates that the nuclear issue is being dealt with a sort of stubbornness,” the conservative paper Jomhuri-e-Eslami said in a recent editorial.

Last Saturday, the reformist newspaper Aftab-e-Yazb said the nuclear policy was hurting Iran’s ability to gain nuclear technology. It added: “Some current leaders act as if any person criticizing (the government) is an agent of the enemy.”

Larijani, the top national security official, kept up criticism of the United States in an interview with journalists from several Lebanese papers.

Larijani, who was in Lebanon on a tour of Arab nations seeking to build alliances with Iran, accused Washington of “stirring up Sunni-Shiite disputes” and “inciting Arab-Iranian discord.”

The papers said Larijani was “encouraged” by his visit to Saudi Arabia – a pro-American, predominantly Sunni Arab kingdom considered a rival of overwhelmingly Shiite Persian Iran.

Ahmadinejad said he had sent a message to Saudi King Abdullah proposing the countries cooperate in trying to ease the violence in Iraq – a message apparently delivered by Larijani. Saudi officials have not commented on the message.

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Associated Press Writer George Jahn contributed to this report from Vienna, Austria.