A four-member team of inspectors from the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived early Sunday in Tehran to inspect the uranium plant being built inside a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom, south of the capital. The team is expected to stay three days in Iran.
The plant's disclosure on September 21 by Iran to the IAEA unleashed a wave of global outrage against Tehran, with Obama warning the Islamic republic would face "increased pressure" if it fails to address concerns over its atomic program.
Iran is already enriching uranium for several years at another plant in the central city of Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions.
Western powers are mainly concerned about Iran's uranium enrichment drive, suspecting its ultimate aim is to make an atom bomb, a charge strongly denied by Tehran.
Tehran has always slammed the West for its double standard policy confirming that enriching uranium is its right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) while Israel, which is believed to be the sole nuclear power in the Middle East with more than 200 nuclear heads, is not a signatory for this treaty.
Enriched uranium produces fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly extended form can also make the fissile core of an atomic weapon.
Iran, which informed the agency about a year after building began, said its disclosure obligation only began 180 days before it placed any nuclear material inside the facility.
On Saturday, Mehr news agency, quoting an unnamed Vienna-based official, said the IAEA inspectors will "compare the information given by Iran (about the Qom plant) with the facility during their three-day visit."
Iranian officials say that at the Qom plant they intend to install new generation centrifuges - the device which enriches uranium at supersonic speed.
The IAEA inspection comes as Obama spoke to his Russian and French counterparts on Saturday to garner support for a separate deal to end the crisis over Iran's nuclear program.
Washington said Obama spoke to Russia's Dmitry Medvedev and
France's Nicolas Sarkozy where all men "affirmed their full support" for a UN-brokered deal which aims to ship out Tehran's existing stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU).
The full details of the proposed deal have not been released, but France has said it calls on Iran to transfer 1,200 kilos of LEU from its Natanz plant to Russia by the end of 2009.
Russia would then enrich the material to the higher 19.75 percent needed as fuel for a Tehran research reactor which makes radio-isotopes for medical use. Diplomats say Moscow would sub-contract to France the process of turning this Russian-enriched uranium into fuel rods for the reactor.
Obama is said to be cementing positions of Russia and France, two key members of the group who have been negotiating with Iran. The group has often seemed at odds about the need for new sanctions against Tehran.
Urging Iran to embrace the deal, the three leaders also "discussed the importance of all parties accepting the proposal so that implementation can begin as soon as possible," the White House said.
The three spoke after Tehran ignored a Friday deadline to respond to the offer, saying it would make its decision in the next week.
Top Iranian officials have questioned the deal as Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani accused that Western powers were trying to "cheat" Tehran through the deal. "Westerners are insisting to go in a direction that speaks of cheating and are imposing some things on us," Larijani reportedly told the Iranian IRNA news agency.
"They are saying we will give you the 20 percent [enriched uranium] fuel for the Teheran reactor only if you give us your enriched uranium. I see no link between these two things," he reportedly said.
Powerful MP Alaeddin Borujerdi said Iran would be "better" off buying the nuclear fuel rather than entering into this uranium exchange deal.
Moreover, Abolfazl Zohrevand, senior Iranian atomic expert and diplomat, said Western powers want to ship out the bulk of Iran's low-enriched uranium (LEU) which would then create obstacles in Tehran's further enrichment activities. "They want to take out in one go 70 percent of Iran's enriched uranium. If we want to enrich this amount, it takes 18 months and in these 18 months they will get the opportunity to pressure Iran and lead it in the direction they want (of suspending enrichment)," the official IRNA news agency quoted him as saying.
He said that from the start Iran wanted to buy 20 percent enriched uranium from abroad for its research reactor in Tehran. "But Western parties, through their suggestions, tried to convert this issue into an opportunity and link it to Iran's nuclear program. They have changed our suggestion (of buying fuel) to a kind of suspension," Zohrevand said.
He insisted that Tehran will "not give up its nuclear rights," adding that Iran in no way wants to "link the issue of the Tehran reactor to the overall nuclear issue."
