TEHRAN, Oct 30: Iran will not return to a full freeze of its disputed nuclear fuel activities and rejects Western demands for such confidence building measures, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Sunday.

“We support the resumption of work at the UCF (uranium conversion facility) and we will continue,” Ahmadinejad said, rejecting demands that Iran return to a full freeze agreed to in November 2004 in a deal with Britain, France and Germany.

“The previous government backed down in the name of confidence building so much that they voluntarily suspended the fuel cycle in Isfahan and Natanz,” he complained, referring to Iran’s uranium conversion and uranium enrichment installations.

“Recently the government realised that this confidence building claim is wrong.”

Reacting to Western pressure against Iran, he said: “They want to deprive us of the fuel cycle. They are lying and they don’t want the Islamic republic to have the fuel cycle.”

These activities, Ahmadinejad insisted, were “100 percent lawful and there was no deviation” towards military purposes.

“It is a big lie that Iran has concealed things for 18 years,” he asserted.—AFP