Iran said it will allow the UN nuclear watchdog to inspect its newly disclosed uranium enrichment facility, following the confirmation of the plant's existence.
"We have no problem with inspections if they are within regulations," the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Ali Akbar Salehi, said in an interview on Iran state television.
He said Iran would announce the timing of inspections once agreement was reached with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), he was quoted as saying.
The announcement that Iran is building a second enrichment plant comes just days ahead of an October 1st meeting in Geneva where Iranian officials will hold talks with representatives of the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany. The meeting seeks to determine whether the Persian Gulf country is willing to limit its nuclear activities, which several western nations claim is aimed at developing weapons.
US president Barack Obama said today the discovery of a secret nuclear plant in Iran showed a "disturbing pattern" of evasion by Tehran which added urgency to its October 1st talks with world powers.
Iranian officials voiced defiance, with one saying he hoped the plant, under construction southwest of Tehran, would soon be ready and "blind" Iran's enemies and another expressing shock that the world was not grateful it had revealed its existence.
Iran, which insists its nuclear programme is aimed at electricity generation rather than weapons production as feared by the West, will meet the United States and five other powers in the Swiss city of Geneva on Thursday.
The US president warned Iran yesterday it would face "sanctions that bite" if it did not come clean.
"This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion," he said today.
"That is why international negotiations with Iran scheduled for October 1st now take on added urgency," Mr Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
Britain, France and Germany have joined the United States in raising the spectre of new sanctions against Iran if it does not take steps to address concerns about its nuclear programme.
Russia also signalled a greater willingness to go along with sanctions while China said it favoured a "dual track" approach of pressure and talks.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed "grave concern" in talks with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad yesterday and said Tehran had to show its intentions were peaceful.
"He emphasised that the burden of proof is on Iran," Ban's press office said in a statement.
Iran acknowledged it had a uranium enrichment facility near Qom for the first time on Monday in a letter to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
"This new plant, God willing, will soon become operational and will make the enemies blind," the semi-official Fars News Agency quoted Mohammad Mohammadi-Golpayegani, who heads the office of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as saying.
Yesterday, Mr Ahmadinejad said the facility was around 18 months from starting operations and that Western powers would regret accusing Iran of hiding it. Iran already has a uranium enrichment plant near the central city of Natanz.
Mr Mohammadi-Golpayegani, a cleric who was speaking at a ceremony marking the start of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, said the construction of the facility was a sign Iran was at the "summit of power", Fars reported.
Iran will meet the United States and five other powers in the Swiss city of Geneva.
It has repeatedly rejected demands to halt its nuclear programme and is showing no sign of backing down.
Alaeddin Boroujerdi, who heads the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy commission, warned the West against taking measures which he suggested could affect Tehran's existing cooperation with the IAEA.
"They should not do something that would make Iran regretful of the existing level of cooperation which is sometimes beyond the agency's legal requirements," he was quoted as saying by ISNA news agency.
Mr Boroujerdi said Iran's construction of a new enrichment plant should not negatively overshadow the October talks, "unless these countries are after some pretext to ruin the negotiations and to make them fruitless."
Reuters