Officials here also said a top level EU-Iran meeting on the progress of the nuclear talks, deadlocked over Iran's insistence on pursuing sensitive nuclear fuel work, would be held on March 23.

"We haven't seen incentives. What we have seen is remedying of mistakes. This is not a bad thing, but you cannot call them incentives," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

Britain, France and Germany have been trying to secure "objective guarantees" that Iran will not use its atomic energy ambitions to acquire nuclear weapons, and in exchange they are offering a package of trade, security, diplomatic and technology benefits to the Islamic republic.

On Friday Washington announced it would help the EU put together the incentives by dropping objections to Iran joining the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and allowing it access to spare parts for its civilian aircraft.

But Iran has played down the importance of such offers, saying it has a right to join the WTO anyway and that sanctions affecting the maintenance of its decrepit civilian aircraft fleet were unfair to begin with.

Speaking to the BBC, top negotiator Hossein Moussavian said the US offer "does not represent any economic advantage and does not have much value."

"To show their goodwill, the Americans should release our assets that are frozen in American banks, lift their economic sanctions against Iran and put an end to their hostile acts against Iran in the world and the region," he said.

And Iran's Intelligence Minister Ali Yunessi told the student news agency ISNA that "the United States should apologise to Iran for having insulted it" with such an offer.

Asefi also said there were still differences over what constituted "objective guarantees".

Ideally, the Europeans would like to see Iran change its suspension of enrichment activities into a permanent halt, but Asefi repeated assertions that such a demand has yet to be formally made.

"The topic or issue of a permanent suspension has not been talked about, because the Europeans know this is an absurd demand," he said.

Iran says it has the right to enrich uranium to produce atomic fuel, but once mastered the fuel cycle can be diverted to military purposes.

"We have to wait a little more. We have to be more patient," Asefi said of the talks with the EU, which began in December.

"The negotiations are complex and difficult. The most difficult part is that they did not live up to our expectations, but that does not mean it has been positive or negative," he told reporters.

"A lot of the issues depend on the next steering committee meeting" on March 23, he added, asserting that "neither side wants the negotiations to fail".

According to Ali Agha Mohammadi, spokesman of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, the steering committee meeting would include the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany as well as EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.

He said he hoped "the steering committee will correct the attitude of the European experts."

Asefi also shrugged off the threat of Iran being referred to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, something the United States has been pushing for.

"If our case is referred to the UN Security Council, we can handle it. There is no doubt that in the short term, sanctions would put pressure on Iran. But it is not in their favour to refer Iran to the Security Council. If they want they can go ahead," he said.

Negotiations with the United States were also "not on the agenda".

"If the US wants to enter the negotiations they will destroy them. They have to change their approach. The US has a wrong hypothesis to begin with. Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons," Asefi stressed.

And speaking on Al-Jazeera late Saturday, Ali Akbar Velayati -- a former foreign minister and now a top advisor to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei -- said that Iran was "still negotiating and believes there is a chance for the world to acknowledge Iran's right to nuclear technology."

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