IAEA casts doubt on Iran's "good" intentions

Iran is entering talks with six world powers this week with good intentions, the Islamic Republic's chief nuclear negotiator said Wednesday even as the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said Tehran broke a transparency law.

Saeed Jalili's comments, echoing those by other Iranian officials in the run-up a one-day meeting in Geneva Thursday -- described the meeting as an "opportunity and a test" for the world powers.

But director Mohamed ElBaradei said in a televised interview Iran broke a U.N. transparency law by failing to disclose much earlier a nuclear plant being built for uranium enrichment, agency.

Iran reported the site to the International Atomic Energy Agency on Sept. 21. Western powers said Tehran was forced to do so after learning they were about to discover a plant whose construction began 3-1/2 years ago.

"We are entering the talks with a good will," Jalili said on Wednesday at Tehran's international Imam Khomeini airport. He is secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

Western diplomatic sources have said the newly disclosed plant was hidden inside a mountainside on a former Iranian Revolutionary Guards base near the Shiite holy city of Qom. It heightened suspicions of a covert Iranian aim to develop atomic bombs, they said.

We are entering the talks with a good will

Saeed Jalili, negotiator

Iran has said the site is meant for enriching uranium only to low levels for civilian energy, like its much larger Natanz enrichment complex which is under IAEA monitoring, and that it had no legal obligation to reveal it until now.

ElBaradei disagreed.

"Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that," he said in an interview with CNN-India during a visit to New Delhi, in remarks relayed by the IAEA's Vienna headquarters.

Iran was supposed to inform us on the day it was decided to construct the facility. They have not done that

Mohamed ElBaradei

Talks are a test

European Union foreign affairs chief Javier Solana will conduct the talks with Jalili, along with senior officials from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States in the Swiss city of Geneva.

Solana stressed ahead of the meeting, the first of its kind for 14 months and the first since U.S. president Barack Obama took office, that the five permanent powers (P5) in the U.N. Security Council and Germany wanted guarantees from Tehran on the civilian nature of its nuclear ambitions.

"For the moment we have not obtained the objective of guarantees that the project is only peaceful," Solana said on the sidelines of an EU defense meeting.

He called the talks a "test" of Iran's intentions, as the powers maintained demands for a freeze in Iran's nuclear enrichment in return for a freeze in sanctions.

"I say to Iran as they face a crucial date this week; join the international community now or face isolation," British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Tuesday.

Iran has insisted for years that it has a right to civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and to make enriched fuel for power plants -- although its first Russian-built and long-delayed nuclear plant is yet to come on line.

For the moment we have not obtained the objective of guarantees that the project is only peaceful

Javier Solana, EU