Iran confirmed yesterday that it has invited world powers to tour its nuclear sites this month.
The invitation went to "the EU, the non-aligned movement and representatives from 5+1 countries", the foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said.
The "5+1" countries are the six world powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear programme: the five permanent UN Security Council members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China - plus Germany.
A diplomat familiar with the contents of the four-paragraph invitation, dated December 27, told the Associated Press that it also was mailed to Russia, China, Egypt, the group of nonaligned nations at the UN International Atomic Energy Agency, Cuba, Arab League members at the IAEA, and Hungary, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.
Iran would identify the invited countries at a later time, Mr Mehmanparast said.
The US spokeswoman for the US mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Jennifer Hall Godfrey, confirmed yesterday that the US - the harshest critic of Iran's nuclear programme - had not received an invitation.
The tour would be held ahead of talks set for later this month in Turkey, between Iran and the 5+1 nations, on whether there is common ground for more substantive talks about Iran's programme.
The visit to the nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz and heavy water reactor at Arak has been scheduled for January 15 and 16, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's permanent ambassador to the IAEA, told an official Iranian government news agency (IRNA) yesterday.
The invitation shows the country's transparency and co-operation with IAEA, Mr Soltanieh and Mr Mehmanparast said. Iran insists its nuclear programme is designed to generate power, but the West suspects that it is a cover to build bombs.
The invitations have "once again shown the goodwill of our country regarding co-operation [with the IAEA] and [Iran's] peaceful nuclear activities," Mr Mehmanparast said yesterday .
The website of state-run television said the invitation was not among the Islamic Republic's obligations towards the IAEA.
Tehran and the 5+1 countries held talks in Geneva last month and agreed to meet again in Istanbul this month. The date of talks in Turkey has not yet been announced.
Mark Toner, the deputy US State Department spokesman, told Bloomberg on Monday that Iran's move could not draw international attention away from the core issues regarding its nuclear programme.
The tour "is not a substitute for Iran fulfilling its obligations to cooperate with the IAEA", he wrote in an email to the agency.
At his briefing, Mr Mehmanparast did not offer a clear answer to a question about whether an invitation had been extended to the US. The names of the countries and representatives to visit the nuclear facilities will be announced later, he said.
China and Hungary have so far been the only countries to acknowledge the receipt of the invitation. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told reporters that his country had received an invitation and that China is looking forward to talks on Iran's nuclear programme in Istanbul.
Hungary was consulting with the EU foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, and EU member states about Tehran's proposal, the website of Hungary's foreign ministry said yesterday.
In 2006, Iran allowed six IAEA diplomats from developing countries to visit the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facility (USF), which produces uranium hexafluoride to feed enriching centrifuges in Natanz.
The country has declared several nuclear facilities and sites in Natanz, Arak, Isfahan, Qom and Bandar Abbas to the IAEA and has a power plant in Bushehr that Iranian nuclear officials say will become operational next month.
World powers say they are concerned that Iran is secretly operating a military nuclear programme and the UN Security Council has imposed four sets of sanctions on the country. China, and to a lesser degree Russia, have acted to dilute harsh sanctions proposed by the US and its western allies on the Security Council, leading to compromise penalties enacted by the council that are milder than the West had originally hoped.
The outreach to Moscow and Beijing in Tehran's offer to visit appeared to be an attempt to leverage any differences between the eastern and western powers meeting the Iranians in Istanbul.
"The West has two options for interacting with Iran; either continue its previous policy or respect the rights of other nations," the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, told supporters during a visit yesterday to Semnan.
* With additional reporting by the Associated Press