Iranian officials in Tehran, meanwhile, insisted the country had no intention of suspending uranium enrichment.

"I confirm that our technical efforts are going ahead appropriately," Reza Aqazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said in comments to the official news agency, IRNA.

Aqazadeh said Iran's goal remained "improving nuclear technology" and installing 50,000 centrifuges at its underground plant in Natanz. A confidential IAEA document obtained by AP last month said Iran was using 1,300 centrifuges at Natanz.

In the enrichment process, uranium gas is injected into cascades of thousands of centrifuges, which spin and purify it. If enriched to a low level, the result is fuel for a nuclear reactor. To a much higher level it can build the material for a nuclear warhead.

The US and some of its allies have accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons; Iran says its program is peaceful.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, had agreed to meet European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana on May 31 to discuss the deadlock over Tehran's nuclear program.

The two men last held talks in April, and Larijani said at the time they had come closer to a "united view" on how to break the stalemate.

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