Iran said on Saturday it would allow UN inspectors into its newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant, as US President Barack Obama led a global outcry against Tehran for building the facility. "As the president (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) said, we have no problem for inspection within the framework of the agency (International Atomic Energy Agency) regulations," Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran's atomic energy chief, said on state television.
"We will pursue this case with the agency and the date of the visit will be announced after we reach an agreement with the IAEA." He said the new plant was 100 kilometres (60 miles) from Tehran on the road to the holy city of Qom - the first official disclosure of its location, and "more details will be given about the site later to the Iranian people."
On Friday, the IAEA said Tehran wrote to the agency on September 21 disclosing that it is building a new uranium enrichment facility. "God willing this new plant will become operational soon and make the enemy blind," Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's chief of staff, was quoted by Fars news agency as saying on Saturday.
He did not give any time frame. The announcement of the new facility came just days before an October 1 meeting in Geneva between Iran and six world powers to discuss Tehran's disputed atomic programme. Ahmadinejad denied Tehran was building the plant in secret, as charged by Western leaders, and told reporters in New York on Friday the facility was "completely legal." "We actually informed the agency (IAEA) 18 months ahead of time. Is this the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? I thought we are supposed to be encouraged for taking this action."
Salehi said the plant was a "guarantee" Tehran's nuclear work would continue. "Considering the threats (to existing nuclear sites), our organisation decided to do what is necessary to preserve and continue our nuclear activities," he told state television. "So we decided to build new installations which will guarantee the continuation of our nuclear activities which will never stop at any cost." On Saturday he said that Tehran was "not asking for permission from anybody" for its nuclear activities.
Obama and other Western leaders have threatened Tehran with new sanctions if it does not come clean during the Geneva talks between Iran's top nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and representatives of Britain, France, Russia, China, Germany and the United States.
The six world powers suspect Tehran is developing atomic weapons under the guise of a civilian nuclear energy programme, a charge Iran vociferously denies. Uranium enrichment lies at the heart of the nuclear controversy, since the process can be used to make an atomic bomb as well as producing fuel for nuclear reactors.
Obama said Tehran's new facility "is a serious challenge to the global non-proliferation regime, and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion." "But Iran must now cooperate fully with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions," he said in his weekly audio and video address on Saturday.
Obama said "the international community is more united than ever before." Iran's leaders "must now choose - they can live up to their responsibilities and achieve integration with the community of nations. Or they will face increased pressure and isolation, and deny opportunity to their own people."
On Friday he did not rule out a military option to halt Tehran's galloping nuclear drive, and on Saturday, Iran's arch-foe Israel called for an "unequivocal" response from the West. "We are not surprised by the recent revelations, because we have been saying that Iran is developing its nuclear activities for military purposes, and the facts prove it now," Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman told public radio.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in a joint appearance with Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh on Friday, threatened rapid sanctions against Iran. "In December, if there is not an in-depth change in Iranian leaders, sanctions will have to be taken," he said. British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said world leaders were "100 percent focused on a diplomatic resolution, however. "It's vital that we get the decisive diplomatic breakthrough that we've been waiting for a long time," he told BBC radio.
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