By Parisa Hafezi and Steve Holland
Tehran/Washington - Iran said on Tuesday it would not discuss a previously secret nuclear plant at international talks this week, but Washington vowed to bring it up and demanded Tehran prove it is not developing an atomic weapon.
White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs, asked about Iran's insistence it would not discuss the facility in the Geneva talks, declared: "They may not, but we will."
Iranian officials and representatives of six major powers, including the United States, China and Russia, will hold talks on Tehran's nuclear ambitions in Geneva on Thursday. It is the first such encounter since US President Barack Obama took office early this year promising more active US diplomacy.
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Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, made clear that Iran feels the newly disclosed uranium enrichment plant is off-limits for discussion.
"We are not going to discuss anything related to our nuclear rights, but we can discuss about disarmament, we can discuss about non-proliferation and other general issues," Salehi told a news conference.
"The new site is part of our rights and there is no need to discuss it," he said, adding Tehran would not abandon its nuclear activities "even for a second".
The back-and-forth suggested a tense atmosphere and little optimism ahead for the talks, after US President Barack Obama joined with leaders of Britain and France last week to disclose the existence of the Iranian plant and call on Tehran to let the International Atomic Energy Agency inspect it.
Iran's IRNA news agency quoted MP Mohammad Karamirad, a conservative and member of parliament's foreign policy and national security commission, as saying Iran could close the door completely to co-operation with world nuclear authorities. - Reuters
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