The Islamic republic's hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday that Tehran would have "no problem" sending abroad its stocks of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to be further purified into fuel.

But EU and US officials, wearied by years of virtually fruitless talks to persuade Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and ease concerns about its atomic ambitions, suspect the offer could be yet more brinksmanship to buy time.

"Iran must now respond to the director general of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)," EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton told security experts and senior officials at a conference in Munich, southern Germany.

"The Tehran research reactor proposals are an attempt to build badly needed confidence," said Ashton, newly appointed to lead negotiations with Iran on behalf of major world powers.

These powers suspect that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb behind the screen of a civilian atomic energy programme, a charge which Tehran rejects.

Combining diplomacy with the threat of sanctions, the powers have tried to convince Iran to suspend enrichment -- which at highly refined levels can be used to build a bomb -- in exchange for political and economic incentives.

In Munich overnight, Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said: "I personally believe that we have created conducive ground for such an exchange in the not very distant future."

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, whose country, seen along with fellow UN Security Council member China as less keen on more sanctions, also urged Iran to work through the UN watchdog.

"What we want from Iran is to verify very specific questions, raised time and again by the IAEA a long time ago, it is not a difficult thing to do," he said in Munich.

The United States, which has led efforts to have a fourth round of UN sanctions imposed on Iran for failing to cooperate with the IAEA, poured cold water on Mottaki's assurances.

"I don't have the sense we are close to an agreement," US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Ankara after talks with talks with Turkish leaders.

Meanwhile US President Barack Obama's top security advisor, James Jones, said in Munich that Iran's defiance currently poses the greatest threat to international security.

"A nuclear capable Iran, with the means of delivering nuclear weapons, is unacceptable, dangerous for the world, and would usher most certainly a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which none of us would like to see," he said.

"I can think of no greater concern at the moment to our collective security," he said. "Tehran must meet its responsibilities or face stronger sanctions and perhaps even deeper isolation."

Jones said the door for diplomacy with Iran remains open, but he underlined that "Tehran's puzzling defiance... now compels all of us to work together as allies and partners on a second track of increased pressure."

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt backed Ashton's line, saying that while Iran appeared to be showing some flexibility, its position had to be made clear and to go through the official channels.

"There are some hints of more flexibility in the Iranian position but that needs to be put on paper before it can be properly assessed," he told reporters.

He conceded that Iran could be buying time, "but if time can be used constructively, that's not necessarily a bad thing."

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