President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Friday remained defiant in the face of international outrage over Iran's concealment of a second uranium enrichment facility. At the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the leaders of the United States, Britain and France condemned Iran for deceiving the world and violating international rules, after Tehran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Monday of the plant near Qom, a town south of Tehran.
US President Barack Obama said the size of Iran's second nuclear plant is "inconsistent" with use for civilian power, as US officials alleged its sole purpose was to give the Islamic state the option to produce material for atomic weapons.
"The existence of this facility underscores Iran's continued unwillingness to meet its obligations under UN Security Council resolutions," Obama said, speaking alongside British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
At a hurriedly organized press conference in New York, Ahmadinejad said the three Western powers had made a "big mistake" by accusing his government of inconsistency in building the plant, adding that Iran had complied with all international regulation.
"It's really sad for three heads of state to say something without foundation," he said. "We are completely within IAEA rules and its supervision."
Brown called Iran's nuclear programme the most urgent proliferation challenge the world faces today. "The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the whole international community, and it will harden our resolve."
Sarkozy insisted that Iran come clean about its nuclear activities by December or face a new round of international sanctions.
China and Russia - among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council with veto power - have in the past been reluctant to back strong measures against Iran. But Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signalled a willingness to get tougher since Obama announced September 17 that he was dropping Bush-era plans to base a long-range missile-defence system in Eastern Europe.
"The revealed information that Iran is building a new enrichment plant is serving to strengthen our determination to achieve early concrete and verifiable results," Medvedev said, according to Interfax news agency. Speaking prior to the latest revelation, Medvedev said sanctions were an option.
If Russia gets on board, Obama will have gathered more momentum to isolate Iran if it continues to defy the Security Council's demands. But he will still have to persuade Beijing to accept stronger measures.
Chinese Foreign Minister Ma Zhaoxu rejected the use of sanctions to punish Iran for failing to disclose the nuclear site. "I don't like the word punishment," Ma said. "I think all of the issues can only be solved through dialogue and negotiations."
The UN Security Council has applied three rounds of sanctions on Iran in an unsuccessful effort to get the country to stop its enrichment activities at Natanz, a site that only became known after an exiled Iranian opposition group revealed it in 2002.
This week's Iranian admission to the IAEA comes at a sensitive juncture in Tehran's relations with China, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the US, which are preparing for talks with Iran on Thursday in Geneva, aimed at improving relations, but also at touching on its controversial nuclear programme.
Under an agreement with the IAEA and UN Security Council resolutions, Iran is required to inform the nuclear monitoring agency of all of its atomic activities and construction plans.
Iran only informed the IAEA of the Qom site after learning the secrecy had been compromised, a US official said, adding that US intelligence was aware of it from the beginning but waited until it could be "undeniably" shown it was for weapons grade uranium.
"Within the last few months, we think we had a very strong basis to make our argument," the official said, adding that the Qom facility is too small for civilian nuclear energy but "the right size" to produce enough uranium for two bombs.
Tehran maintains that it is enriching uranium only as fuel for nuclear electricity generation.
Obama has sought to reach out to Iran to begin negotiations on the contentious issue that has been on the top of the international agenda for years. He reaffirmed Friday his desire to reach a diplomatic solution.
