Pittsburgh, September 25: President Barack Obama and the leaders of France and Britain will accuse Iran at the opening of the G-20 economic summit Friday of building a secret facility to produce nuclear fuel, a senior White House official said.
The official said the three leaders, Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, will demand Tehran open the covert facility up to inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Iran has kept the facility, 100 miles southwest of Tehran, hidden from international weapons inspectors for years, but the U.S. has long known of its existence, the official said.
Obama decided to go public with the revelation after Iran learned that Western intelligence agencies were aware of the project.
Officials said that the plant could be in operation by next year.
Meanwhile, a diplomat in Vienna and another European government official revealed that Tehran has informed the IAEA that it has a previously undeclared uranium enriching facility.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was confidential, said Iran revealed its existence in a letter sent Monday to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the atomic energy agency.
Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, made no mention of the facility this week while attending the U.N. General Assembly in New York, but said that his country had fully cooperated with international nuclear inspectors.
Administration officials said the disclosure would make it easier to make the case for imposing sanctions if Iran blocks inspections or refuses to quit its nuclear program.
“They have cheated three times,” a senior White House official said adding, “And now they have been caught three times.”
–Agencies