Iran invites US, China and EU nations to nuclear sites

Tehran has confirmed that it has invited representatives of world powers and its allies among the Arab and developing world to tour its nuclear sites.

Tehran has invited Russia, China, the European Union and its allies among the Arab and developing world to tour its nuclear sites including the Bushehr reactor.

Iran has confirmed that it has invited representatives of world powers and its allies among the Arab and developing world to tour its nuclear sites.

The foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said today the invitation went to "the E.U, the non-aligned movement and representatives from 5+1 countries".

The "5+1" countries are the six world powers engaged in negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program – the United States, Britain, France, Russia , China and Germany.

Mr Mehmanparast said the tour is to take place before Iran meets with the six in Turkey in late January.

He says the invitation to visit is an indication of his country's "good will" regarding its nuclear programme.

The West suspects Iran wants to produce weapons, and not power, as it claims.

Instead, the Islamic Republic insists its uranium enrichment and other programs are meant only for peaceful purposes to generate fuel for a future network of nuclear reactors.

Diplomats from delegations at the table with Iran during the December talks in Geneva said Tehran made no commitments to talking about UN Security Council demands that it freeze uranium enrichment - which can turn out both fuel and fissile warhead material. And Iranian negotiators flatly ruled out discussing such demands at the Istanbul meeting.

International worries are great because Tehran developed its enrichment program clandestinely and because it refuses to cooperate with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency probe meant to follow up on suspicions that it experimented with components of a nuclear weapons program. Tehran denies such work.

The offer of a visit comes more than three years after six diplomats from developing nations accredited to the IAEA visited Iran's uranium ore conversion site at Isfahan, which turns raw uranium into the gas that is then fed into enriching centrifuges. Participating diplomats then told reporters they could not make an assessment of Iran's nuclear aims based on what they saw at that facility in central Iran.

But the new offer appeared more wide ranging, both as far as the nations or groups invited and sites to be visited.

A diplomat accredited to the IAEA said Bushehr and Natanz were the venues to be toured and that meetings were planned with acting Foreign Minister Ali Salehi, the head of Iran's atomic agency, and Saeed Jalili, Tehran's chief nuclear negotiator.