Iran on Saturday denounced a report that International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors had found enriched uranium in environmental samples taken in the country as "suspicious and vague".

"This type of forged news is suspicious and vague, since it is up to the IAEA to make comments on this issue, not diplomats who have no accurate information about it," the official IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi as saying.

A western media cited unnamed diplomats as alleging that samples taken from a nuclear facility in Natanz, central Iran, showed Tehran has been enriching uranium without informing IAEA.

"The Natanz facility has not become operational yet. Thus, the claim of enriched uranium had been found there is totally meaningless," Asefi said.

He said the facility in Natanz is "under the IAEA safeguards and supervision and no clandestine activity is taking place there."

"Allegations that samples taken show levels of enrichment is very questionable and we expect this issue will be clarified in our dialogue with IAEA," Asefi added.

According to IRNA, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei has reportedly denied in Vienna that enriched uranium was found in the samples. He described the reports as "pure speculation at this stage."

(Xinhua News Agency July 19, 2003)