U.S. to Demand Access to Newly Exposed Nuclear Facility in Iran

By Glenn Kessler Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 26, 2009; 6:46 PM

At talks scheduled for Thursday in Geneva with Iran, the United States and five other major powers will demand immediate and unfettered access to the newly exposed nuclear facility in Iran, including people and documents involved in its construction, and insist that Tehran abide by international rules to reveal such projects before construction begins, administration officials said Saturday.
Diplomats will also insist that Iran undertake confidence-building measures, including answering questions about suspected efforts to develop nuclear weapons and accepting a timetable for serious negotiations. Officials said there is no stated deadline, but there will be the implied threat that if Iran fails to respond seriously by year's end, the United States and its partners will begin to push for crippling sanctions that could target Iran's economic and financial links to the world.
In the wake of the discovery of the facility near the holy city of Qom, "it is now a choice for Iran, and the choice became starker," said a senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. As an inducement for cooperation, the United States and other powers have offered economic and diplomatic incentives if Iran reins in its nuclear ambitions.
Iranian officials insisted Saturday that they notified the International Atomic Energy Agency about the facility in a timely fashion and that IAEA inspectors are welcome to visit it, though they did not say when, or whether they will be able to set up monitoring equipment. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, denounced the reaction from the United States and other Western powers. "Their embarrassing reaction and their unbalanced response has shocked us," he told state television.
In his weekly radio address, President Obama emphasized the importance of the showdown at Geneva's historic Hotel-de-Ville, which will also include diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China -- and will mark the first diplomatic encounter between Iran and the Obama administration.
"This is a serious challenge to the global nonproliferation regime and continues a disturbing pattern of Iranian evasion," he said. "That is why international negotiations with Iran scheduled for October 1st now take on added urgency."
"We are hopeful that, in preparing for the meeting on October 1st, Iran comes and shares with all of us what they are willing to do, and gives us a timetable on which they are willing to proceed," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters Saturday after meeting with Arab foreign ministers on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly.