TEHRAN, Feb 17: Iran's foreign minister denied on Tuesday that the Islamic republic had already enriched uranium to make nuclear fuel, just days after he offered the product for sale on the international market.

"Iran has the capacity and the potential, but certain people imagined that the fuel was already ready," Mr Kamal Kharazi was quoted as saying by the official news agency IRNA.

Mr Kharazi said he had also been reacting to a recent call from US President George W. Bush that only a limited number of countries should be permitted to trade in nuclear materials.

"As a country that is capable of producing nuclear fuel, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to sell it on the international market," Mr Kharazi had said on Saturday.

The foreign minister also confirmed on Tuesday that Iran is studying the development of a new centrifuge. "Some people are trying to make a big issue about this," he said. "This is only a research programme."

Diplomats at the IAEA's headquarters in Vienna said last week that UN nuclear weapons inspectors in Iran had found blueprints for an advanced uranium enrichment centrifuge, the G2, that Tehran had failed to declare even as it was claiming to be providing full disclosure on its atomic energy programme.

Enriched uranium is used as fuel for nuclear reactors but can also be used for making atomic bombs. -AFP