TEHRAN, Iran — Iran will allow the U.N. nuclear agency to inspect a newly revealed and still unfinished uranium enrichment facility, the country's nuclear chief said on state television Saturday.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and its partners plan to tell Iran this week that it must provide "unfettered access" for the International Atomic Energy Agency to the facility within weeks, a senior Obama administration official said Saturday in Washington.
Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi didn't specify when inspectors from the nuclear agency could visit the site but said it has to be worked out with the agency under Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty rules.
Iran's newly revealed enrichment site is said to be in the arid mountains nearthe holy city of Qom, inside a heavily guarded, underground facility belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guard.
The small-scale site is meant to house no more than 3,000 centrifuges - far fewer than the 8,000 machines at Natanz, Iran's known industrial-scale enrichment facility.
President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy accusedIran on Friday of constructing a secret underground uranium enrichment facility and of hiding its existence from international inspectors for years.
But Salehi said there was nothing secret about the site and that Iran complied with U.N. rules that require it to inform the world body's nuclear agency six months before a uranium enrichment facility becomes operational.
"Inspection will be within the framework of the regulations ... we have no problem with inspection [of the site]. We will work out this issue with the agency and will announce the date of the inspection later after reaching an agreement with IAEA," Salehi said on state television Saturday.
Salehi, who is also the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said Tehran should be praised, not condemned, for voluntarily revealing the existence of the nuclear facility.
Salehi said the Western leaders' "embarrassing reaction and their unbalanced response has shocked us.
"Under [Nonproliferation Treaty] rules, we are required to inform the IAEA of the existence of such a facility 180 days before introducing materials, but we are announcing it more than a year earlier. Still, we see there is controversy. We are astonished," he said.
Iran has said the new facility won't be operational for 18 months, so the country has not violated any of the nuclear agency's requirements.
The Iranians claim to have withdrawn from an agreement with the nuclear agency requiring them to notify the agency of the intent to build any new nuclear facilities and instead are now only subject to the six-month notification requirement before a facility becomes operational.
But the agency says Tehran cannot unilaterally withdraw from that bilateral agreement and should have announced just the intent to build the facility.
A close aide to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also said Saturday that the Qom facility will be operational "soon," perhaps even ahead of the 18-month figure cited by Salehi.
"This new facility, God willing, will become operational soon and will blind the eyes of the enemies," Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani told the semiofficial Fars news agency.
Salehi said that by reporting the existence of the site voluntarily to the nuclear agency, Iran "pre-empted a conspiracy" against Tehran by the U.S. and its allies who were hoping to reveal the site as evidence that Iran was developing its nuclear program in secret.
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has foiled their planned conspiracy," he said.
Salehi said construction of the Qom facility was a "precautionary measure" to protect Iran's nuclear facilities from possible attacks.
"Given the threats we face every day, we are required to take the necessary precautionary measures, spread our facilities and protect our human assets. Therefore, the facility is to guarantee the continuation of our nuclear activities under any conditions," he said.
TOUGH WORDS
Ahead of Thursday's international talks with Iran in Geneva, Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address that the world "is more united than ever before" on the issue of Iran's nuclear program. Those negotiations, he said, "now take on added urgency."
"My offer of a serious, meaningful dialogue to resolve this issue remains open," Obama said, urging Tehran to "take action to demonstrate its peaceful intentions."
At Thursday's meeting, the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia will present a so-called transparency package - including access to scientists, documents and computers - covering all of Iran's nuclear activities across the country, the Obama administration official said.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss plans that are not yet ready to be announced.
Beyond the time frame of "weeks" for coming clean on Qom, the six countries will not give Iran a specific deadline to provide the information about its overall program, the official said.
The development of such a time frame will depend on the Iranians' actions in the meeting and directly after it, the official said.
However, Obama has said repeatedly that Iran must show significant cooperation by the end of the year, establishing what some officials say is effectively a three-month deadline.
Thursday's meeting will mark the first time in 30 years that the United States will join the talks as a full, direct participant, fulfilling Obama's campaign pledge for "full engagement" with Tehran.
Interviews over the past three days with administration officials, senior intelligence officials and international nuclear experts suggest near-unanimity that disclosure of the covert facility is a potential turning point in U.S.-Iran relations.
It is providing unprecedented leverage, they said, to demands for access to other sites that have long been off-limits and for answers to hundreds of outstanding questions. The officials say that if Iran resists, the United States will seek tough new sanctions, at a time when the government in Tehran has been weakened by internal strife.
WORLD REACTION
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the U.S. to take action over the Iranian nuclear facility in a phone conversation with American lawmakers, an official in his office said Saturday.
Netanyahu spoke with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and a number of unidentified U.S. senators and told them that now is the time to act on Iran. Israel maintains that the Islamic republic is seeking nuclear weapons.
"If not now, then when?" the official quoted Netanyahu as saying. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to speak with the media.
He did not disclose what kind of action Netanyahu recommend be taken.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said earlier Saturday that the Iranian nuclear facility proves "without a doubt" the Islamic republic is pursuing nuclear weapons.
"This removes the dispute whether Iran is developing military nuclear power or not and therefore the world powers need to draw conclusions,"Lieberman said on Israeli radio. "Without a doubt it is a reactor for military purposes, not peaceful purposes."
Iran received more condemnation Saturday at the U.N. General Assembly, with the Netherlands calling Tehran's presumed weapons program "a major challenge to international peace and security."
Slovakia's Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajcak joined the chorus, rebuking "Iran's continued defiance of its international obligations, including the Security Council's demands to suspend its nuclear activities."
The denunciations came hours after Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met privately Friday night with Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Tehran's nuclear ambitions and about respect for human rights in Iran.
A statement from Ban's office said he "expressed his grave concern about ... the construction of a new uranium enrichment facility in the country."
Ban "emphasized that the burden of proof is on Iran." Information for this article was contributed by Ali Akbar Dareini, Ian Deitch and Peter James Spielmann of The Associated Press; by David E. Sanger, William J. Broad and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times; and by Thomas Erdbrink of The Washington Post.
Front Section, Pages 1, 15 on 09/27/2009