Tehran, Iran ? Iran vowed Sunday to press ahead with uranium enrichment despite U.N. economic sanctions aimed at forcing a rollback in its nuclear program, and hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad warned that the penalties would hurt the West more than Iran.

The measures adopted unanimously Saturday by the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council were the first concrete steps taken against Iran for defying a U.N. demand that it rein in the nuclear program to allay suspicions it is trying to develop atomic weapons.

Iranian analysts were more cautious about the effect that the sanctions might have on Iran’s troubled economy, saying it could chase away foreign investment needed to create jobs. But Ahmadinejad predicted the United Nations would have to accept Iran’s nuclear program

“This will not damage the nation of Iran, but its issuers will soon regret this superficial and nil act,” he told a group of veterans from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

Addressing countries that voted for the sanctions, Ahmadinejad said the only effect of the sanctions would be “dissolving your reputation,” the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted him as telling the veterans gathered at the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran.

Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said the resolution made his country more “decisive in realizing our nuclear aims.” He said it would step up enrichment activities.

“From Sunday morning, we will begin activities at Natanz – the site of 3,000-centrifuge machines – and we will drive it with full speed. It will be our immediate response to the resolution,” Iran’s Kayhan newspaper quoted Larijani as saying.

Oil-rich Iran insists its nuclear program is intended only to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity, but Washington and some allies suspect its ultimate goal is to create atomic weapons in violation of Iran’s treaty commitments.