TEHRAN, May 24 (Reuters) - Iran's nuclear work is close to reaching its "peak", its president said on Thursday, signalling fresh defiance a day after U.N. monitors said Tehran was flouting Western demands to halt sensitive atom work.

"With God's help the path to completely enjoying all nuclear capacity is near its end and we are close to the peak," Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told a rally in the central town of Isfahan. "The Iranian nation today has industrial nuclear technology and ... it will never retreat even one step from this path."

Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to develop nuclear bombs, but Tehran says its activities are only aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more oil and gas. (Tehran newsroom, tel: +98 21 8850 0085, fredrik.dahl@reuters.com))

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