"I think given that record, it's hard for the international community to have any confidence in Iran's promises," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

"We believe the latest promises to suspend some enrichment-related activities that were made only days before the next Board of Governors' meeting and are intended merely to manipulate the discussion next week, delay any serious by the board and buy Iran more time to perfect its uranium enrichment program," he pointed out.

Iran confirmed Wednesday that it was holding talks with European countries on uranium enrichment, indicating again that he was ready to make concessions in hopes of preventing Europe in joining the United States in referring the case to the UN Security Council.

But Boucher said there was an effort under way by Iran "to confuse the issue a week before the Board of Governors' meeting."

"We'll have to see if all this discussion leads to real concrete steps of compliance," said the spokesman. "What Iran has not done is to suspend all enrichment-related activities, which the board called for in four resolutions over the past year and which Iran itself committed at one point to the Europeans to do."

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