U.S., allies will demand 'unfettered access'

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. and its five allies trying to stop Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program plan to tell Tehran in a key meeting on Thursday that it must provide "unfettered access" to its previously secret Qom enrichment facility within weeks, a senior administration official says.

The allies - the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia - also will present in the Oct. 1 meeting a so-called transparency package covering all of Iran's nuclear activities across the country, said the official said.

The allies will demand that Iran prove to the increasingly skeptical group that its intentions with its various sites are peaceful and energy-related, as Iran claims, and not for weapons development, as the West believes, the official said Saturday.

These nations now agree that they are less inclined to listen to suspect arguments or incomplete evidence - viewing it as a stall tactic, the official said.

But beyond the timeframe of "weeks" for coming clean on Qom, the allies will not give Iran a specific deadline to provide the information about its overall program, the official said.

The kind of transparency the group wants from Tehran is far-reaching, covering people, timeframes and facilities. This would include full access for the International Atomic Energy Agency to any and every site, notebooks, computers and documents related to nuclear development, and all scientists.

The U.S. will be represented in Thursday's meeting in Geneva by William Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, a career diplomat.