Iran says uranium enrichment to go on

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TEHRAN, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Iranian lawmakers say Tehran has no plans to suspend its uranium enrichment program.

"The 20 percent enrichment has not been and will not be halted in Iran," Iranian Member of Parliament Mohammad Hossein Asfari told Press TV.

The Guardian newspaper said Asfari, who works on foreign policy and national security issues, was misquoted Saturday as saying that Tehran had already stopped 20 percent enrichment.

Asafari said he had told Iran's Isna news agency that Iran would be ready to temporarily stop enrichment to 20 percent if sanctions were lifted.

Lawmaker Kazzem Jalali said Iran has no intention of stopping the enrichment program.

"This claim is unreal because the 20 percent enriched uranium is needed for Tehran's (research) reactor and its medical purposes," Jalali told the state-run Fars News Agency Sunday.

"In line with defending our nuclear rights, we believe that uranium enrichment is our inalienable right," he was quoted as saying.

Uranium enriched to the 20 percent level is close to weapons-grade material. The United States and Israel have said they will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon. Iran maintains it does not intend to use its enriched uranium for military purposes.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said Tehran has proposed the live broadcast of its nuclear program talks with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany).

"Iran's nuclear issue has a specific framework. The talks that we have pursued have been so transparent and our proposals have been so specific that the Iranian side has even proposed a live TV coverage of the whole talks," Mehman-Parast told the news agency on the sidelines of Tehran's 19th International Exhibition of Press and News Agencies Saturday.