Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi also announced that the Islamic republic's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had issued a edict banning the use of nuclear weapons, pledging that nobody in Iran was seeking the bomb.

When asked if Iran had offering concessions on building centrifuge components during talks with the European Union, he said: "Nothing official from the Islamic republic has been said or announced in this regard so far."

"We have more important issues and this is a marginal issue," Asefi told reporters.

"If the Europeans and the international community want assurances that nuclear technology will be used for peaceful purposes, we are ready to give assurances within the framework of the additional protocol," he said.

"But if the issue is that we cannot master nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, that is out of the question because we have already reached that point," he asserted.

But it was not clear if Asefi was referring to Iran's attitude to a draft resolution due to be considered by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is due Monday to resume its discussions on Iran.

Iran is accused by the United States of trying secretly to develop nuclear weapons, but the clerical regime insists it is merely trying to generate electricity.

"We are ready to give assurances, because from the beginning we said using nuclear weapons is haram (forbidden). The supreme leader (Khamenei) has issued a fatwa on this. No group in this country is thinking of acquiring nuclear weapons," Asefi said.

No further details on Khamenei's purported edict were immediately available.

Diplomats at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna said Saturday that Britain, France and Germany were ready to set a November deadline for Iran to allay suspicions it is secretly making nuclear weapons.

The draft resolution, which also calls on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment related activities, brings the three countries -- which have been trying to broker Iranian cooperation with the IAEA -- closer to the US hard line.

The United States wants Iran referred to the UN Security Council, but Asefi predicted this would not happen during the week.

"Iran's dossier will not be sent to the UN Security Council because there is no reason for it," he said.

The issue of enrichment and the wider nuclear fuel cycle is at the heart of international concerns. Uranium can be enriched through centrifuges into a highly refined form that can be used as fuel for civilian reactors or to make an atomic bomb.

Nuclear fuel cycle work for peaceful purposes is permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but there are worries Iran could master this and then easily shift it towards military purposes.

The three Europeans have been trying to get Iran to agree to surrender its enrichment programme in return for a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel and increased trade. Iran has only agreed to suspend enrichment itself pending the completion of the IAEA investigation.

Asefi also said an IAEA request to visit one of Iran's main military sites, Parchin near Tehran, had only been the subject of "preliminary discussions" -- after diplomats in Vienna said Iran was holding out on allowing inspector access to the site.

Parchin, 30 kilometres (18 miles) southwest of Tehran, is a site for a variety of defense projects, including Defense Industries Organizationwork in chemical explosives, but the IAEA is wondering if Tehran is possibly doing nuclear weapons work there.

"There are more important matters to be discussed with the IAEA this is just a marginal issue," Asefi asserted.