President Barack Obama on Friday accused Iran of hiding a secret nuclear plant and demanded that Tehran immediately open the site to international inspections.
Speaking at the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh, Obama said that the United States, the United Kingdom and France presented evidence that Iran had been building a covert uranium enrichment facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna this week.
He also said that Iran only recently informed the IAEA about the facility, long after it began building it.
The president said that Iran had a right to a peaceful nuclear program to provide energy to its people, but he said the size of their facilities is inconsistent with a peaceful program.
"Iran refuses to live up to international obligations," said Obama.
UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the level of deception surrounding Iran's nuclear program "shocking."
"We have no choice today but to draw a line in the sand . . . We will not let this matter rest," Brown warned.
According to reports, U.S. officials say the Iranian nuclear plant is 100 miles southwest of Tehran near the holy city of Qom.
"This site deepens a growing concern that Iran is refusing to live up to those international responsibilities," Obama said. "This is not the first time that Iran has concealed information about its nuclear program."
"It is time for Iran to act immediately to restore the confidence of the international community by fulfilling its international obligations," he added. "We remain committed to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran."
Senior Obama Administration officials, speaking to reporters on condition they not be named, said that the intelligence services of all three countries had worked very closely together to develop information on the site for quite some time.
However, the three intelligence agencies had held off on revealing their information in the early stages in order to allow construction of the facility to continue to the point that its nature as a uranium enrichment facility could not be denied, the officials said.
In later stages, the agencies did not reveal their information in order to build the strongest case they could make to the IAEA.
Recently, the intelligence services received information that the Iranians had learned that the secrecy of the facility had been compromised, prompting them to make a passing reference to the facility in a letter to the IAEA on Monday.
That prompted them to make a detailed and technical briefing from intelligence sources available to the IAEA on Thursday, in advance of Friday's public announcement.
The U.S. officials said that the plant, consisting of 3,000 centrifuges - a number they said was too small for a commercially viable plant creating fuel for nuclear reactors - was initially described by Iran as a "pilot scale" commercial facility and was not yet operational.
Iran's first attempt to create a secret underground enrichment plant, which is now under strict IAEA monitoring and safeguards, holds 8,000 centrifuges.
For some time, the IAEA has required that all new construction of facilities designed for even civilian nuclear programs be disclosed as soon as it is begun, but Iran unilaterally declared in 2007 that it would not be bound by that restriction, a declaration that the IAEA ruled illegal.
However, the U.S. officials said that construction of the Qom facility had begun even before Iran had made that declaration, putting Iran unequivocally in violation of international law.
The revelation of the new secret site is certain to increase pressure on Iran in advance of negotiations, the U.S. officials noted, saying that key countries that in the past had sought to shield Iran from sanctions were now showing increased impatience and concern.
The existence of the facility was brought up in the bilateral meeting between Obama and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev earlier this week, prompting some to speculate that it may have contributed to Medvedev's shift to a stance more supportive of sanctions should diplomatic efforts fail.
The Chinese were also informed at roughly the same time, the officials said, though the specific existence of the facility was not raised in Obama's meeting with Chinese President Hu Jintao.
The U.S. officials stressed several times that the next move is up to Iran, but that the U.S. intends to use the information about the facility as a source of greater leverage in negotiations in demanding that Iran comply with IAEA inspections and become more open about the full extent of its nuclear program.
The officials said that the Iranian partial disclosure to the IAEA may have been intended as an effort to cover the facility as simply a peaceful plant, but they said they doubted any in the international community would be fooled.
There is a growing sense of international consensus and cooperation about the future diplomatic path with Iran, the officials said, not to mention a distinct and growing impatience.
Iran now needs to take "concrete action" to reassure the global community, the officials said, adding that they expect the IAEA to be "very vigorous" in its investigation of the facility and its supporting sites.
The site was both "very heavily protected" and "very well disguised," one official said, a strong indication of its illicit nature.
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