Tehran - A team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are scheduled to inspect the new nuclear site Fordu located south of the Iranian capital Sunday, state media reported. The Mehr news agency reported that the first inspection has already been effected and further inspections were planned.
Mehr, which had no source for its report, gave no further details.
The four inspectors arrived in the early hours of Sunday in Tehran and are supposed to check whether the Iranian data presented last month by Iran to the IAEA match with those at the site.
According to Iranian information, the site is under construction and would become operational either by the end of 2010 or in March 2011.
The main Iranian enrichment site is the Natanz plant, located in central Iran, where 8,000 centrifuges, mainly of the slower P1 model, are reportedly installed and, according to IAEA, 4,600 (Iran claims 6,000) are already operational.
Some 3,000 centrifuges of the P2 model - which are more than twice as fast as the P1 - are to be gradually installed in the Fordu site.
The locally made P2 models are to gradually replace the P1 centrifuges in the Natanz plant, Iranian officials say.
The West fears that the site might be used for a secret military programme, but Iran's Atomic Organization head, Ali-Alkbar Salehi, rejects the accusations, saying the second plant would be in full accordance with all international regulations and under IAEA surveillance.
Iran's IAEA ambassador, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said within the same context that Fordo was a backup plant in case the Natanz site was attacked by Israel.
Although the IAEA inspection results of the unfinished Fordu site - to be reflected in next month's report by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei - would not bring any major breakthrough, they could still have a symbolic impact in the nuclear dispute.
Another positive impact could be a positive Iranian reply to a uranium exchange deal with Russia, the United States and France.
Iran wants to reply to the IAEA by next week as to whether it would agree with the deal to exchange its low-enriched (3.5 per cent) uranium from the Natanz with high-enriched (20 per cent) uranium from the three states, or rather purchase the enriched uranium separately.
Observers believe that rejecting the deal would once again endanger future nuclear talks between Tehran and world powers.
