Iran's former President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani said Monday that the Islamic republic is not pursuing atomic weapon program, the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.

Hashemi-Rafsanjani made the remarks in a meeting with the new Spanish ambassador to Tehran.

"The European countries are making a grave mistake by raising suspicions about the (nuclear activities of) Islamic republic in the international arena," he was quoted as saying.

"We hope that your country, as a member of the European Union ( EU) to take effective steps to remove such mistakes and suspicions, " Hashemi-Rafsanjani, currently the chief of the country's expediency council, told the Spanish ambassador.

"The Islamic republic is never after building nuclear weapons," he stressed, adding that every country, including the Islamic republic, has the right to take advantage of the benefits of the peaceful nuclear energy.

For his part, the new Spanish ambassador to Iran hailed the historical ties between the two countries and said that despite the difference between Iran and the EU, the cultural and commercial relations between Iran and Spain have paced forward, according to ISNA.

Last week, Hashemi-Rafsanjani said that Western countries had not been cooperative and not sincere in the nuclear talks with Iran.

The West had resorted to coercion and was seeking proper time to implement their objectives, he said.

The latest round of talks between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, Britain, China, France, Russia plus Germany) ended without an agreement in Moscow last Tuesday, but all parties agreed to meet again in Istanbul in July at the expert level.