"We're negotiating and we're trying to come to an agreement. The next meeting will be soon," said Syrus Nasseri, in quotes translated from Persian by journalists who monitored the five hours of talks in Vienna.

Iran was responding at the closed-door meeting to an offer made last week by Britain, France and Germany, the EU's three biggest countries, that would allow Tehran to avoid potential UN sanctions over what the United States claims is a secret nuclear weapons program and receive nuclear technology by indefinitely suspending uranium enrichment.

Enrichment is the process that makes fuel for civilian reactors but also what can be the explosive core of atomic bombs.

Iran's supreme guide Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned Wednesday that Tehran could break off the talks if "illogical demands" were made such as long-term suspension of uranium enrichment.

"I say to those negotiating with representatives of the Iranian people not to lead us to the conclusion, through unjust and illogical words, that they do not believe in negotiations based on logic, because in that case, the people and the Islamic regime will leave the negotiating table," he said.

"Suspension of enrichment is an illogical demand," said Khamenei, quoted on the state television Al-Alam.

Analysts and diplomats have expressed skepticism about Iran's tactics.

They said Iran was seeking to delay the matter until after US presidential elections November 2, and then give in just enough to avoid having the International Atomic Energy Agency send the Iranian nuclear dossier to the UN Security Council, as Washington seeks, when the IAEA meets in Vienna on November 25.

The council could impose punishing sanctions on Iran.

"The Iranians think they are in a strong position now to complete their enrichment program" due to the United States being bogged down in Iraq, said Gary Samore of the London thinktank the International Institute of Strategic Studies.

Nasseri said: "Total suspension (of uranium enrichment) will not be accepted under any circumstances."

The European trio have called on Iran to suspend all enrichment activities, including the first step of making uranium gas fuel for refining, and for this to be "indefinite, until we reach an acceptable long-term agreement," according to a confidential text of the European proposals obtained by AFP.

Iran has since October 2003 voluntarily suspended the actual enrichment of uranium as a confidence-building measure to show cooperation with an IAEA investigation.

But Iran has refused to agree to an indefinite suspension, saying this would violate its right to enrichment under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and has said that some parts of the fuel cycle, such as making the feed gas and the centrifuges that carry out the enrichment, should not be covered by the suspension.

Still, Nasseri told Iranian television after the talks that "the negotiations were very constructive for Iran, and numerous questions were dealt with during five hours of negotiations."

Nasseri said the talks would resume in either Britain, France or Germany.

Senior nuclear official Hossein Moussavian said late Tuesday in Tehran that Iran could take months to agree to the EU request since the offer was riddled with ambiguities and must be more balanced.

Under the European offer, Iran would receive valuable nuclear technology, including a light-water research reactor which would produce less fissionable material than the heavy-water reactor Tehran wants to build.

The deal also includes a recognition of Tehran's right to peaceful nuclear technology, measures to increase trade and backing of some of Iran's regional security concerns.

A Western diplomat told AFP he thought Iran had "put some offers on the table trying to redefine what indefinite suspension means, doing whatever they can to enshrine their right to enrichment capability."

The diplomat said the Iranians wanted also "to get carrots more upfront in the process," referring to promises the Europeans have said they would fulfill only after long-term negotiations.

The diplomat said "on all three points, the West hopes the three European countries will hold firm" on promises they have made to their allies not to make concessions to Iran.

The Vienna meeting brought together senior foreign ministry directors from Britain, France, Germany and the EU's foreign representative office with a delegation under Amir Hossein Zamani-Nia, the Iranian foreign ministry's international political affairs director.

All rights reserved. � 2004 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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