Tehran/Vienna - Most Iranians, let alone foreigners, had never heard the name Fordo until recently, but the peaceful little village south of Tehran has suddenly become a nuclear hotspot. Fordo came under the international spotlight when Iran declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in late September that it is building a second enrichment plant there.
The mountainous village is located 160 kilometres south of Tehran and 47 kilometres south of the religious city of Qom. It has fewer than 1,000 residents - whose main income comes from agriculture, stock-breeding and beekeeping.
The IAEA inspectors who are scheduled to visit Iran from Sunday to visit the site are probably the first foreigners the Fordo residents have ever seen in their lives.
Little is known about the underground plant except that it is currently under construction and supposed to become operational by the end of 2010, with at least 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium.
Observers doubt that the IAEA inspection of the empty, unfinished building will yield any spectacular insights, but the permanent UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States, as well as Germany, see this as a confidence-building step to de-escalate tensions in the long-running nuclear dispute.
The visit comes at a time when efforts to solve the nuclear standoff are in full swing. This week, three days of talks at the IAEA resulted in a proposal waiting to be signed by Iran, Russia, the US and France on processing most of Iran's enriched uranium stock abroad, rather than in the country.
Next week, another round of wider-ranging talks between Iran and world powers is scheduled to take place in Geneva, following up on previous such negotiations on October 1.
The main controversy over the Fordo site was not the plant itself but rather the timing of its declaration to the IAEA.
Senior US officials said Tehran only informed the Vienna-based organization once it realized that Western intelligence agencies had found out about Fordo.
While Iran claims that it informed the UN nuclear watchdog even before the required deadline - three months before getting operational - the IAEA made clear that it does not share this interpretation.
The agency says the country is obliged to provide technical information "as soon as the decision to construct or to authorize construction has been taken," and that Iran cannot unilaterally stop implementing this rule.
"We did stick to all legal frameworks and informed the IAEA over one year before the plant becomes operational," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said.
The purpose of the inspection in Fordo is to obtain more documentation and information related to the facility from Iranian officials, an official familiar with the IAEA said.
"The physical inspection might not amount to much, because as far as was advertised, there is nothing there," he said. "My guess is there will be lots of sitting at desks rather than walking around in empty rooms."
However, the IAEA experts are expected to check for the presence of nuclear particles and to confirm whether the actual site corresponds to the technical plans provided by Iran.
The IAEA team might be in Iran for two or three days, according to the official. IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is set to prepare a formal report by around mid-November.
Based on the information gathered, the IAEA will draw up an inspection plan for the plant, to make sure it is not used for military purposes.
In such facilities, uranium can be enriched to levels suitable for power generation. But the same technology can also be used to make material for nuclear weapons.
Iran's construction of a second enrichment plant besides the one operating in Natanz has again raised suspicions that there is a parallel secret programme to build nuclear weapons. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has categorically denied this.
Iran's final nuclear aim, according to President Ahmadinejad, is to make fuel for Iran's nuclear power plants and reactors in the future.
"What is however the most important issue for Iran is international acknowledgement of its rights to pursue civil nuclear technology, especially by the US, and if this acknowledgement is achieved, Iran would also be more flexible," a foreign diplomat in Tehran familiar with the nuclear dispute said.
