**UN inspectors have arrived in Iran where they are due to visit a previously secret nuclear facility.**The plant is near the city of Qom and the UN officials are expected to remain in the country for three days.
The visit comes as further difficulties are experienced by the major powers trying to agree a deal with Iran over its nuclear programme.
Under a new proposed plan, Iran would send its enriched uranium away to be turned into fuel.
The inspection will be the first time monitors from the United Nation’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), have been allowed access to the enrichment plant.
BBC Tehran correspondent Jon Leyne says Iran announced the existence of the new facility last month, apparently because Western intelligence had already discovered it.
Our correspondent says that Iran would have had plenty of time to remove anything that might be incriminating ahead of the inspectors’ visit.
‘In jeopady’
On Saturday, The White House said Barack Obama had telephoned French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to thank them for their countries’ roles in developing the IAEA plan on Iran’s enriched uranium.
Under the deal, most of Iran’s uranium would be exported to the IAEA and sent to Russia for enrichment and on to France for further refinement.
Iran would get the fuel it needs for its research reactor in Tehran, but this would not be sufficiently enriched to make a bomb.
NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE
- Mined uranium ore is purified and reconstituted into solid form known as yellowcake
- Yellowcake is converted into a gas by heating it to about 64C (147F)
- Gas is fed through centrifuges, where its isotopes separate and process is repeated until uranium is enriched
- Low-level enriched uranium is used for nuclear fuel
- Highly enriched uranium can be used in nuclear weapons
In depth: Nuclear fuel cycle](BBC NEWS | INDEPTH | THE NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE)
Iran has said it will respond to the offer by the middle of next week.
The White House said the US, French and Russian leaders had all “affirmed their full support” for the deal.
Iran says its nuclear programme is for purely peaceful purposes but the revelation of the existence of the new plant near Qom had increased fears in the West about Tehran’s intentions.
The BBC’s Jon Leyne adds that there has also been a setback in Iran to the IAEA deal. The speaker of parliament and two other senior parliamentarians have expressed opposition to Iran allowing its enriched uranium to leave the country.
He explains that if the country rejects that key element in the agreement it will place both the entire deal and the process of negotiating with Iran on its nuclear programme in jeopardy.