AND JIM TANKERSLEY, WASHINGTON AND PITTSBURGH — Dramatically heightening the international confrontation over Iran, President Obama on Friday revealed the existence of an underground uranium enrichment site that the Islamic Republic had kept secret from international inspectors for years.
Disclosure of the site -- which Tehran did not deny, but said was for peaceful purposes -- sharpened accusations that Iran is deceiving the world about its nuclear intentions.
"Iran is breaking rules that all nations must follow," Obama said in remarks at an international summit in Pittsburgh, where he described the site and said that Tehran was "threatening the stability and security of the region and the world."
Intelligence officials said the installation is buried deep inside a mountain about 100 miles southwest of Tehran, in a heavily guarded compound operated by the Revolutionary Guard.
Once operational, the facility would be capable of producing enough fuel each year to arm a nuclear warhead, according to U.S. intelligence officials who have been secretly tracking the site since at least 2006.
The disclosure, timed by the Obama administration for dramatic as well as diplomatic effect, came while Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was in New York, where he spoke at the United Nations this week, and only days before the United States and five other nations are scheduled to resume talks with Tehran about its nuclear program.
Iran appears to have become aware that the secrecy surrounding the site had been penetrated, prompting a cryptic disclosure to the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, in a letter sent this week.
But Obama, who came into office seeking a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations, took the unusual step of unveiling details about the secret site himself during an appearance alongside the leaders of France and Britain at the Group of 20 conference of industrialized and key developing nations in Pittsburgh.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, whose spy services worked closely with their U.S. counterparts to gather intelligence on the site, condemned Iran's conduct.
"The level of deception by the Iranian government, and the scale of what we believe is the breach of international commitments, will shock and anger the whole international community," Brown said.
"And it will harden our resolve."
