TEHRAN: Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on Wednesday handed over Iran’s new package of proposals relating to its controversial nuclear programme to the envoys of six world powers, a photographer told AFP.

Mottaki at a brief ceremony at the foreign ministry handed over a copy of the proposals to each of the representatives of the six powers involved in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

The contents of the package were not immediately made public.

The Iranian foreign minister had said on Tuesday that the ‘package of proposals has been updated in light of developments in the world and different events that have taken place and will be submitted to the P5+1 tomorrow.’

The P5+1 consists of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany, which are acting on behalf of the international community in the standoff. Swiss envoy Livia Leu Agosti represented the United States which has had no diplomatic relations with Iran since the aftermath of the 1979 revolution.

The new Iranian offer came as the International Atomic Energy Agency was holding a week-long meeting in Vienna, at which the US envoy charged that Iran was moving closer to ‘nuclear breakout capacity’ — the point where it can build a bomb.

Western governments and Israel have accused Iran of trying to develop atomic weapons under cover of its civilian programme, a charge Tehran vehemently denies.

World powers have threatened to impose a fourth set of UN sanctions if Tehran fails to hold talks by late September.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that he would continue cooperating with the IAEA.