Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday that the Islamic republic will not retreat on its nuclear issue.

There is nobody in Iran who wants to retreat from the country's nuclear rights, said Ahmadinejad when addressing reporters in a press conference.

However, Ahmadinejad said that if Iran receives 20-percent enriched uranium, there is "no need" to produce it by itself.

Asked by a Xinhua reporter about Iran's earlier announcement that the Islamic republic may consider giving up the production of 20-percent enriched uranium, Ahmadinejad said Iran had demanded other countries provide it with 20-percent enriched uranium as the fuel for medicine production, and had said it was ready to exchange 3.5-percent enriched uranium for the 20-percent one.

However, "so far there has been nobody to provide the fuel," he said.

The production of 20-percent enriched uranium as fuel is " costly," he said, adding that "anytime they provide the fuel for us, we do not need (to produce) the costly fuel."

An Iranian lawmaker said Tuesday that the Islamic republic will enrich uranium up to a purity of 60 percent if negotiations with major world powers prove ineffective, Press TV reported.

"In case our talks with the P5+1 group -- including the U.S., the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany -- fail to pay off, Iranian youth will master enrichment (of uranium) up to 60-percent purity to fuel submarines and ocean-going ships," Mansour Haqiqatpour, deputy head of Iran's Majlis (parliament) Foreign Policy and National Security Commission, was quoted as saying.

"The P5+1 that postpone negotiations (with Iran) to the future should know that if these talks continue into next year, Iran cannot guarantee it would keep its enrichment limited to 20 percent. This (level of) enrichment is likely to increase to 40 or 50 percent," he said.

"They should not think that we will stay calm in the face of threats, sanctions and pressure," the Iranian lawmaker noted.

Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili said last month in Istanbul that Iran and the European Union (EU) had agreed to hold a new round of nuclear talks in the near future.

At a press conference after talks with EU foreign affairs representative Catherine Ashton in Istanbul, Jalili said the time for the upcoming nuclear talks would be decided when Ashton go back and submit a report to the P5+1.

An Iranian diplomat told Xinhua that it would take at least one month to start the new round of nuclear talks.

Ashton met with Iranian officials in Istanbul in a bid to end the standoff over the Iranian nuclear program.

Since the last round of Iranian nuclear talks ended in June without a breakthrough, Israel has been brandishing the threat of a possible military action against Iran's nuclear sites. The United States remains in favor of economic sanctions and diplomacy, but has not ruled out the military option.

The United States and its Western allies suspect Iran is working toward a nuclear weapon capability. Tehran denies the claims, saying that its nuclear program is "peaceful."