TEHRAN, April 13 (RIA Novosti) - Iran has rejected an appeal by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog to halt uranium enrichment but will present its official position on the matter before late April, a senior Iranian security official said Thursday.
"Halting activities in the nuclear sphere is not a solution to the crisis surrounding Iran's nuclear program and cannot resolve the related problems," Ali Larijani, secretary of the Islamic Republic's Supreme National Security Council, said following talks with Mohammed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Larijani, however, reaffirmed Iran's adherence to its international non-proliferation commitments and added that the nuclear problem should be addressed in broader terms.
ElBaradei, who is currently in Tehran to monitor the Islamic Republic's compliance with the UN's demand to re-impose a moratorium on uranium enrichment, urged Iran to resolve the remaining controversial issues related to its nuclear program.
The UN Security Council ordered the IAEA late last month to report back by the end of April on Iran's compliance. The Islamic Republic, suspected by Western countries of secretly pursuing nuclear weapons, could otherwise face punitive measures.
ElBaradei described the talks as constructive and said Iran still had time - in the next two weeks - to allay the global community's fears over its nuclear research.
On Tuesday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country had successfully enriched low-grade uranium and was determined to achieve industrial-scale uranium enrichment for the production of nuclear fuel, but insisted it had no ambition to develop nuclear weapons.
This announcement prompted permanent Security Council members to meet for informal talks on further steps in relation to Iran, although some experts said Tehran was still years away from being able to produce weapons-grade material.
Russia and China, two veto-wielding Security Council members with business interests in Iran, have opposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic, though the Russian Foreign Ministry called the Iranian president's announcement a step in the wrong direction.
