The European Union (EU)'s executive branch remained tightlipped about a report that US commandos have been inside Iran selecting suspected weapons sites for possible air strikes, noting only that Washington has denied it.

"The goal is a militarily non-nuclear Iran. We are as Europeans working through a process of engagement to attain that goal... We hope that there will be no need to consider any other option," said spokeswoman Emma Udwin.

"The EU and the US have the same objective in Iran, but have looked at different ways of attaining the goal," she added.

She was speaking after the New Yorker reported that US commandos have been operating inside Iran since mid-2004 choosing sites for possible air strikes, in an article the Pentagon blasted as "riddled with errors."

Award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, who exposed prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq in 2004, wrote that he was repeatedly told by US intelligence and military sources that "the next strategic target was Iran."

"The Americans have denied the thesis of the New Yorker," said Udwin, adding that EU officials were in Washington last week and "there was no discussion of any such activities."

The EU commission last week resumed talks with Iran on a trade agreement, 18 months after they were suspended due to mounting concerns over Tehran's nuclear plans.

"We are working with our Iranian partners in good faith, as I trust they are working with us in good faith," said Udwin, spokeswoman for EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

"We will pursue that path as long as it is possible and fruitful to do so," she said. But she reiterated that the EU-Iran talks would not necessarily continue regardless of any development.

"If the context in which we are negotiating were to change, we would have to think with our colleagues in the council (of EU governments) what would happen then," Udwin added.

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