Azerbaijan, Baku, Nov. 4 /Trend, D.Khatinoglu/
Just few hours after ISNA quoted the member of Foreign Policy and National Security Commission of Parliament Mohammad Hossein Asfari that Iran suspended processing 20 percent-enriched uranium, Fars News Agency reported on Saturday that enrichment uranium by 20 percent continues without disruption.
"Iran hopes that Western countries lift sanctions against Iran in reply of this suspending, otherwise Iran would keep enriching 20-percent uranium again", said Asfari.
An aware official whose name was not identified in Fars report said that there is not any change in Iran's nuclear program.
After Fars report, ISNA made some reduction over its report, quoted Afsari as saying "In condition that Iran is ready to suspend enrichment uranium in 20 percent leverl, it's expected the West halts sanctions on Iran".
Head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoun Abbasi told ISNA on Oct.31 that Iran is completing installation of centrifuges at Fordow uranium enrichment plant, where Iran processes 20 percent-enrich uranium.
The United States and its allies are particularly worried about Fordow because Iran is refining uranium there to a fissile concentration of 20 percent, which Iran says it needs for a medical reactor.
The diplomats said Reuters on Oct.25 that they had heard of indications that Iran had put in place the last 640 or so uranium centrifuges of a planned total of some 2,800 at the site, but had not started running them yet.
Twenty percent purity is only a short technical step from weapons grade, and the work goes to the heart of Western fears that a program that Iran says is purely peaceful is in fact a cover for the development of a nuclear weapons capability.