Tehran - Iran's intelligence minister on Wednesday denied reports that staff members of the British Broadcasting Corporation were arrested in Iran.

"The arrest of British nationals is not true," Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei was quoted by official news agency IRNA as saying.

A member of the parliament's foreign policy and security commission told Fars news agency on Monday that "a number of British nationals working undercover in Iran as BBC reporters were identified and arrested."

Mohammad-Karim Abedi claimed that the BBC was trying to recruit Iranian reporters for "their espionage aims" and accused the British embassy in Tehran of cooperating with the news network "in launching an expanded spying network."

The BBC plans to launch a Farsi-language broadcast and has recruited Iranian reporters, with some of them reportedly already in London for training.

The BBC has sought legal permission from the Iranian culture ministry, which oversees the foreign press, to operate inside the country. The requests have so far been rejected.

Many Iranians regularly watch foreign news networks, including Farsi-language news programmes, via satellite which is legally forbidden but tolerated by the administration. (dpa)