TEHARAN; Iran will allow a team of UN inspectors access to its controversial second uranium enrichment plant today to check whether the newly disclosed facility was created for peaceful nuclear purposes.

Inspection of the plant, being built inside a mountain near the Shiite holy city of Qom, comes as US President Barack Obama garnered support from France and Russia for a separate UN-brokered deal to end the crisis over Tehran’s atomic programme.

A four-member team of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors arrived in Tehran early on Sunday to inspect the facility which is being constructed adjacent to a military base south of the capital.

It is not yet known if the team has already entered the plant.

Iran’s disclosure to the IAEA of the Qom plant’s existence on September 21 sparked a wave of global outrage, with Obama warning the Islamic republic would face “increased pressure” if it fails to come clean on its atomic ambitions.

Iran has already been enriching uranium — the most controversial aspect of its nuclear project — for several years at another plant in the central city of Natanz, in defiance of three sets of UN sanctions.

Uranium enrichment is the focus of Western concern that Iran’s ultimate aim is to manufacture a

nuclear weapon, a charge strongly denied by Tehran.

Enriched uranium produces fuel for civilian reactors, but in highly extended form can also make the fissile core of an atomic bomb.

IAEA chief Mohamed

ElBaradei has already

criticised Iran for what he said was its late disclosure of the Qom facility’s existence, saying such construction must be revealed on the day it begins.

Iran, which informed the agency about a year after building began, said its disclosure obligation only began 180 days before it placed any nuclear material inside the facility.

Mohammad Kosari, deputy head of parliament’s committee on national security and foreign policy, said the inspectors would visit only the Qom plant.

“If they act within the framework of the law and the Non-Proliferation Treaty we have no problem, but

if they want to go beyond that it is up to us to decide,” he said, indicating that

any additional inspection requests would have to

be cleared by Tehran.

Yesterday, Mehr news agency, quoting an unnamed Vienna-based official, said the IAEA inspectors would “compare the information given by Iran (about the Qom plant) with the facility during their three-day visit.”

Lawmaker Hossein Ebrahimi said the IAEA inspection “shows that Iranian nuclear activities are peaceful and transparent.” Officials say that at the

Qom plant they intend

to install new generation centrifuges — the devices which enrich uranium

at supersonic speed.

The inspection comes as Obama, Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy pledged support for a separate deal to end the crisis over Iran’s uranium enrichment drive.

The White House said the three “affirmed their full support” for a UN-brokered deal under which Tehran’s existing stock of low-enriched uranium would be sent abroad. Western powers are concerned that the material, if not shipped out, could be further enriched inside Iran to weapons grade.