The US and its allies plan to demand that Iran provide unfettered access to scientists and information regarding an underground uranium enrichment plant suspected of being part of a secret nuclear weapons program,an Obama administration official said on Saturday. A deadline for the access has not yet been determined,but Iran probably would have to comply within weeks,said the official,who was not authorised to speak publicly. The US is working with five other nations France,Britain,Russia,China and Germany to press Iran for details after the disclosure that the Islamic Republic has been building the facility deep in a mountain on a military base near the city of Qom. President Obama announced the existence of the plant on Friday at an international economic summit in Pittsburgh. US intelligence officials have been tracking the facility since at least 2006 and said the 3,000 centrifuges it is expected to hold could produce enough fuel annually to arm a nuclear warhead. Meanwhile,Irans Atomic Energy Organisation chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Sunday that the country Iran will keep its uranium enrichment level at up to five per centmuch lower than bomb-grade. We dont want to change the arrangement of five-percent enrichment merely to produce 150 to 300 kilos of 20-per cent (enriched) fuel, ILNA news agency quoted him as saying. On Thursday,officials from the United States,the four other permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany are to meet with Iranian officials in Geneva for previously arranged negotiations that Obama said on Saturday would take on added urgency. This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion, Obama said. Irans 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. A senior State Department official said that although the six world powers that are pressing Iran have not set a deadline for compliance,Obama has signalled a general schedule by saying that the United States would take stock of Iranian cooperation at the end of the year. Iran must provide documents and access,the State Department official said. At the meeting on Thursday,Iranian officials will need to show that they are willing to engage and set up a process for satisfying the other countries. Salehi had said on Saturday that he was shocked by the worlds reaction to news of the plant,which is still under construction. He said Iran was not obliged to disclose the plants existence for another year. But the senior State Department official said the facts are clear that Iran was obliged under agreements to disclose the facilitys existence.
