Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr on Tuesday Mottaki reiterated his country would never again suspend uranium enrichment, a move that the United States says is essential for Washington-Tehran negotiations.

"Demands that Iran halt enrichment are illegal and illegitimate and based on an incorrect political strategy," the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Mottaki as telling a conference in the capital Tehran. "This [suspension] will never materialize."

"However, Iran is prepared to negotiate about its nuclear program without any preconditions," he said.

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Iran suspended enrichment activities in 2003 as a goodwill gesture toward negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, but it resumed the process in January 2006 when it concluded that the talks were leading nowhere.

Enriched uranium is used to fuel nuclear reactors but uranium enriched to a high degree is used to make atomic bombs.

The U.S. and some of its allies object to Iran's enrichment process because they believe it is secretly trying to build nuclear weapons.

Iran denies this, saying its enrichment is solely so that it can be self-sufficient in fuel for its Russian-built nuclear reactor.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reiterated this weekend that she would negotiate with Mottaki as soon as Iran had suspended enrichment.

But Washington's making suspension a precondition for talks was criticized by two opinion-makers at a conference on international security in New York on Monday.

Former chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix said the U.S. condition for negotiations was humiliating for Iran.

"This is in a way like telling a child, first you will behave and thereafter you will be given your rewards," Blix said.

And a former U.S. State Department official, Richard Haass, who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, said the call for stopping enrichment should not be allowed to torpedo diplomacy.

But Haass also criticized Iran for defying the U.N. Security Council, which has repeatedly called on Tehran to stop enrichment.

The Security Council's Big Five members plus Germany began talks on Monday on taking further steps against Iran after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran had ignored demands for a suspension and instead had expanded its enrichment program.

In December the Security Council imposed limited sanctions on Iran.