Foreign ministry spokesman Hassan Ghashghavi also said that the head of the UN atomic watchdog Mohammed ElBaradei had been full of praise for Iran’s cooperation during his weekend visit to Tehran.

Ghashghavi reiterated at a news conference that the Iranian nuclear programme was peaceful in purpose, and dismissed Western demands that Iran offer guarantees to this effect.

Iran and Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States are to meet again by the end of October for more discussions on Iran’s nuclear programme after talks last week in Geneva, the first in 15 months.

Ghashghavi said he was not in a position to make a “judgement” about how the late October round of talks would proceed, but he said that Iran “was going forward with this positive approach”.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) flew in to the Iranian capital on September 3 to work out the procedures of Iran’s newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom.