A senior Iranian official has denied reports the Islamic republic has temporarily stopped enriching uranium to the 20% level, the state news agency IRNA said today.
"Iran's nuclear activities are unchanged and enriching uranium to 20% 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% purity is a few technical steps short of producing weapons-grade fissile material.
Conservative MP Hossein Naqavi Hosseini, 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% level.
"There is no production at all... As right now there is no need for the production of 20% (enriched) uranium," the parliament website quoted Naqavi Hosseini as saying.
But yesterday the MP told Fars news agency he had been misquoted.
The latest developments come as Iran is to hold a new round of talks with six world powers in Geneva on November 7-8 regarding its controversial nuclear programme.
Iran proposed a roadmap to settle the dispute at talks in Geneva earlier this month.
