The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Tehran today to begin inspectingnuclear facilities that Washington says could be used to produce nuclear weapons.
Mohamed El Baradei, director-general of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, will visit two plants being built near the towns of Natanz and Arak. He will also meet President Mohammad Khatami.
Iran, branded by the United States part of the "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, has repeatedly said its nuclear programme is intended purely to meet the growing energy demands of its 65 million people.
Washington claims the two plants and a reactor being built with Russian help at Bushehr could be part of a nuclear weapons programme and asks why Iran, OPEC's second biggest oil producer and with the world's second-biggest gas reserves, needs nuclear power.Mr El Baradei said he would encourage Tehran, already a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to sign the so-called Additional Protocol. This obliges signatories to open up all nuclear facilities to intrusive inspections by the UN agency.
US concern over Tehran's nuclear programme rose this month after Mr Khatami announced Iran had uranium ore reserves and had begun mining operations in the Savand area.
The head of Iran's atomic energy agency then outlined an ambitious nuclear energy programme and said Iran was ready to begin processing uranium.