Under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) rules any "member country has the right to carry out work on enriching uranium," ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the unnamed official at Rosatom as saying.

"To ban Iran from such work is impossible. One can only negotiate with them."

The press office for Rosatom would not comment on the reported interview.

Russian technicians are not taking part in the enriching process, the official added.

The growing row between Iran on one side and the European Union and the United States on the other "does not in any way hinder the completion" of an atomic power station being built by Russian specialists in Bushehr, said the official.

Moscow says it is only cooperating in civilian nuclear power projects, while the United States fears Iran is secretly trying to build a nuclear weapon.

On Tuesday Tehran reiterated its vow to resume uranium ore conversion -- a stage before uranium enrichment.

Enriched uranium can be used as fuel for nuclear power plants or, in higher concentrations, for creating nuclear bombs.

The foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany issued Tuesday a joint warning to Iran, telling Tehran that "we would have no option but to pursue other courses of action" if it resumed nuclear activities in breach of a deal struck with the European Union.

The United States, which accuses Tehran of secretly working towards building a nuclear bomb, has called for Iran to be hauled before the UN Security Council to face possible international sanctions.

Tehran says its nuclear programme is only geared to produce energy.

The Rosatom official was quoted by Interfax as saying that "we always supported Iran's right to developing the nuclear-fuel cycle."

However, the official was also quoted by ITAR-TASS saying that it was not in Iran's economic interests to pursue full-cycle enrichment as this "demands the set-up of high-tech enterprises and a huge quantity of latest-generation centrifuges."

All rights reserved. © 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.