Iran denies secret nuclear plan

"Iran's aim regarding this issue is totally clear, transparent and peaceful and is compatible with international conventions," Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.

United States officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Friday that two sites had been spotted in commercial satellite photographs taken in September.

Both facilities, near the towns of Natanz and Arak in central Iran, are of a type that could be used to help build a nuclear weapon, the officials said.

Iran responded by saying its nuclear energy programme was strictly for civilian use.

"This has been repeatedly approved by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran believes it has the right to use it for peaceful aims," he told the Reuters news agency.

Rebel revelations

A United Nations official in New York, who declined to be identified, said Tehran had told the International Atomic Energy Agency that they were "new facilities related to its civilian nuclear programmes".

The whereabouts of the two facilities were first revealed by a Paris-based Iranian rebel group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

Iran is already building a nuclear power plant, with the help of Russian technicians, at the port of Bushehr, which is scheduled to begin operating in 2004.

The scheme has drawn strong objections from the US, which says it is concerned that Iran intends to develop weapons-grade plutonium there.

Growing threat

American intelligence officials argue that this is the only reason why an oil rich state like Iran would need a nuclear power plant.

US intelligence officials say they do not believe Iran has made any nuclear weapons, but the primary fear is that they will.

Earlier this year the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George Tenet, said America is concerned that countries like Iran may make "sudden leaps" in their nuclear programmes.

The US Government considers Iran a supporter of terrorism and dubbed it part of an "axis of evil" alongside Iraq and North Korea.