Iran pushed ahead on its nuclear programme on Tuesday as the country’s most powerful figure reaffirmed its willingness to hold face-to-face talks with the US on Iraq — sending a somewhat mixed message to the international community.

Talks at the United Nation Security Council on a response to Iran’s nuclear programme remained stalled as diplomats from Russia and China argued with representatives of the European Union and the US over how hard to press Iran to halt its efforts to start uranium enrichment.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the ultimate say in Iran on all state matters, said that Iran was prepared to discuss ways to stabilise Iraq with a US delegation. ‘‘If the Iranian officials can make the US understand some issues about Iraq, there is no problem with the negotiations,’’ Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state television. But he went on to warn the US that Iran should be treated with the respect appropriate to one of the most powerful countries in the regions: ‘‘If the talks mean opening a venue for bullying and imposition by the deceitful party (the Americans), then it will be forbidden,’’ said Khamenei.

His comments came as President Bush warned that ‘‘if the Iranians were to have a nuclear weapon, they could blackmail the world’’ because ‘‘they’re not welcoming the international inspections.’’

Meanwhile diplomats close to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna confirmed that Iran had now assembled 164 centrifuges — enough to combine into what engineers call a cascade, which can be used to spin uranium hexafluoride gas into enriched uranium. That step would put Iran back to the level of technology it had achieved before it agreed to a moratorium on nuclear development in 2003.

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