DHAKA: A senior Iranian official has denied reports the Islamic republic has temporarily stopped enriching uranium to the 20 percent level.

The state news agency IRNA said on Saturday, gulfnews.com publishes this report on Sunday.

‘Iran’s nuclear activities are unchanged and enriching uranium to 20 per cent continues,’ IRNA quoted Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads the Iranian parliament’s influential foreign policy committee, as saying.

Iran’s nuclear enrichment programme is at the core of its dispute with world powers, who suspect it masks a drive for atomic weapons despite repeated denials by the Islamic republic.

Enriching uranium to 20 percent purity is a few technical steps short of producing weapons-grade fissile material.

Conservative MP Hussain Naqavi Hussaini, the spokesman of the foreign affairs commission, was quoted as saying on Thursday that Iran was temporarily halting its production of uranium to the 20 percent level.

‘There is no production at all... as right now there is no need for the production of 20 percent (enriched) uranium,’ the parliament website quoted Naqavi Hussaini as saying.

BDST: 1434 HRS, OCT 27, 2013
RoR/BSK