Iran has prepared an "updated nuclear proposal" and is ready to hold negotiations with world powers, state-run television quoted the Islamic Republic's chief nuclear negotiator as saying yesterday.

The announcement was made a day before six world powers were expected to hold high-level talks in Germany on what to do about Iran's contentious nuclear programme. The West suspects the Islamic state is seeking to build bombs. Iran denies the charge.

"Iran has prepared an updated nuclear proposal and is ready to resume negotiations with world powers," al-Alam, Iran's Arabic-language satellite channel, quoted chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili as saying.

The official Irna news agency quoted him as saying Iran was ready to use its "capacities to remove common concerns on the international scene".

Such language may spark suspicions in Western capitals that the Iran's proposal, like others before, fails to specifically address their concerns about its nuclear ambitions and is a ruse to buy time and avert the threat of more punitive measures.

Iran has repeatedly rejected demands to halt uranium enrichment, which can have both military or civilian purposes, or even freeze it at current levels of output.

US President Barack Obama gave Iran until later this month to take up a six-power offer of talks on trade benefits if it shelves nuclear fuel production, or face harsher sanctions.

Germany will host talks on Iran's nuclear programme this week with the United States, China, France, Britain and Russia.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, speaking at a joint news conference with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, said on Monday Iran should realise how "very serious" the Obama deadline was.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokes-man Hassan Qashqavi condemned those remarks and said sanctions would not work.

"Their interfering comments show that they do not have any realistic or correct understanding about developments in Iran and are a clear interference in other country's internal affairs," the official news agency Irna quoted him as saying.