PARIS - Iran does not need to develop a complete nuclear fuel cycle in order to achieve its civilian nuclear power ambitions, a senior French disarmament official said on Monday.

France, Britain and Germany have demanded Iran renounce its nuclear fuel program, in exchange for economic and political benefits, to allay Western suspicions Tehran wants to build a nuclear bomb.

Philippe Carre, head of the Foreign Ministry's disarmament section, said the EU3 wanted objective guarantees from Iran that its atomic program would not be used for military purposes. "We do not see in the Iranian civilian nuclear program any justification for mastering the full fuel cycle," Carre told a briefing on next month's review conference for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York.

After heavy U.S. lobbying of Iran's nuclear fuel supplier Russia, Iran agreed to return spent fuel to Russia from its Russian-designed Bushehr reactor, which comes on stream in 2006.

"We don't think that, in order to run the current Iranian civilian power station program, there is a need for a separate complete fuel cycle," Carre said.

EU diplomats last week said French President Jacques Chirac has been pushing the European Union to drop its refusal to contemplate allowing Iran to enrich uranium.

That, despite European and U.S. fears Iran could use the technology to build weapons, a goal that would breach undertakings Tehran made as an NPT signatory.

Iran says it needs nuclear technology to meet the booming energy needs of its economy and denies atomic weapons ambitions. It has frozen its enrichment program pending talks with the EU3 but refuses to give it up permanently.

Instead, Tehran is pressing to be allowed to retain a small-scale enrichment program that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) would closely monitor.

"We have to examine (the proposals) in a great deal of detail and in no way prejudge the view taken on it," Carre said.

Tehran has yet to dispel misgivings about its nuclear plans and diplomats on Monday said Iran was failing to cooperate fully with an IAEA probe into Iranian officials' meetings with smugglers linked to Pakistani atom bomb-maker Abdul Qadeer Khan.

The diplomats said the 1987 and 1994 meetings may reveal whether Iran's program originally intended to produce electricity or an atomic bomb, as Washington alleges.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Jean-Baptiste Mattei said France, which produces the bulk of its electricity from nuclear power, wanted to strengthen the NPT at the May 2-27 review conference.

France wanted nuclear technology exporters to take more responsibility for where their material ended up, notably on uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing.

Paris also backed increased IAEA controls, notably via the NPT Additional Protocol which provides for snap inspections of nuclear sites by U.N. inspectors.

Mattei said France also wanted the international community to take firmer steps to punish breaches of the treaty and a greater role for the U.N. Security Council.