The comments came the day after Britain, France and Germany -- who have been trying to convince Iran to limit its nuclear drive -- announced they had cancelled talks scheduled for next week.

Iran has also been emboldened by reports that both UN and US experts had found no evidence of clandestine atomic weapons activities.

"Despite the claims of the Europeans, it was not Iran that violated the Paris Agreement," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told the state news agency IRNA.

He was referring to a November 2004 deal under which Iran agreed to freeze its nuclear fuel cycle activities -- which it insists are only aimed at power generation but which could potentially be diverted to making a bomb.

"The Europeans are to blame for unilaterally interpreting and violating the Paris Agreement," Asefi said, repeating Iran's contention that it has the right under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to produce its own nuclear fuel.

"The Europeans ignored Iran's rights."

At the end of July, the EU-3 formally asked Iran to abandon uranium enrichment-related work in exchange for a package of trade incentives, access to nuclear fuel produced overseas and help with Tehran's regional security concerns.

Iran reacted by resuming uranium conversion work at a facility at Isfahan on August 8, but has so far held off on enrichment.

"Isfahan has nothing to do with the enrichment," Asefi argued. "Activities in Isfahan are not a breach to the agreement."

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), called on Iran earlier this month to return to a full suspension of nuclear fuel activities.

The IAEA is due to report on the crisis September 3, and a refusal by the Islamic republic to comply could lead to Iran's referal to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions.

But the Washington Post reported Tuesday that a group of US government experts and other international scientists have determined that traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

"The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions," the Post quoted a senior official as saying.

The IAEA, according to Western diplomats, has already concluded that enriched uranium particles found in Iran were from smuggled Pakistani equipment.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But Washington had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

The State Department stressed Tuesday that the question about contamination was only "one part of this overall set of questions" about Iran's nuclear programme.

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