Hossein Musavian, an aide to the head of Iran's nuclear programme, Hassan Rowhani, told state television that Tehran's pursuit of enrichment has been the main concern of its European partners.

"The Europeans know that if Iran masters the technology for enrichment it has a potential (military) nuclear capability and that will change the (political) equation" in the region, he said.

But Musavian said that Iran was prepared to guarantee that enrichment would not be used for military purposes.

"We are prepared to build trust and provide a guarantee that our enrichment activities will always be peaceful."

Britain, France and Germany have sought to engage Iran over its pursuit of nuclear technology to ensure it remains peaceful, while the United States has accused Tehran of seeking to develop atomic weapons.

Meanwhile, a senior ultra-conservative Iranian cleric hit out at the United States and its accusations against Iran's nuclear programme.

"(The US) is constantly lying, you have a different policy every day. The Islamic republic has had a transparent policy since day one," Ayatollah Emami Kashani said during Friday prayers in Tehran.

"We curse you who dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima. We curse you who have committed these crimes against humanity," he continued, followed by the usual chants of "Death to America, down with Israel" from the congregation.

Iran was emboldened to advance its nuclear activities after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again failed to produce a "smoking gun" confirming US allegations of a secret weapons drive in a report released on Wednesday.

However, Washington continued efforts to convince the 34 other members of the UN watchdog's governing board to refer Iran to the Security Council for possible sanctions over its nuclear programme.

The IAEA report also signalled that Iran was determined to press on with work on the nuclear fuel cycle -- permitted under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) despite its potentially dual-use nature.

According to the report, Iran has said it will resume large-scale production of the feed material for enriching uranium. Enriched uranium can be used to provide fuel for reactors as well as nuclear warheads.

To this end Iran removed seals the IAEA placed to monitor the manufacture of centrifuges necessary for the production of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) gas, a precursor for nuclear weapons fuel.

Iran carried out tests to produce UF6 in May and June and informed the IAEA that it would pursue similar large-scale tests in August or September.

According to Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's former representative at the IAEA, the new tests will last a month and would permit Iran to embark on full-scale production of UF6 at its nuclear facility at Isfahan.

Another diplomat close to the IAEA said Iran's upcoming production of UF6 would produce a "significant amount" of the gas, an amount that would apparently be enough to use centrifuges to make enriched uranium that could produce at least one if not several bombs.

The IAEA is due to reopen the Iranian nuclear dossier at the agency's headquarters in Vienna on September 13, with European countries thought to be reluctant to take the matter to the Security Council without harder evidence of a military programme, following the failure to find any trace of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

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