<font="caption">The Shrine of Fatima-al-Massumeh, not an enrichment facility

If you find yourself traveling through central Iran, you might want to visit the historic city of Qom. While you’re there you should check out the Mar’ashi Najafi Library, with over 500,000 handwritten texts; the Shrine of Fatima-al-Massumeh, one of the holy sites of Shi’a Islam; and of course the Namak Lake, a large salt lake just 100km outside the city.

Or you could skip all that and go see Iran’s super-secret underground enrichment plant, which Western intelligence officials believe is located somewhere nearby. America, France and Britain outted the facility today at the opening of the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. According to the New York Times, the plant has room for a cascade of around 3,000 gas centrifuges of the type used to enrich uranium for fuel, or nuclear weapons.

Technically, as a signatory to the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran has the right to enrich uranium for use in nuclear power plants. That is what it’s claimed to be doing with its main enrichment facility at Natanz, ever since an opposition group exposed its existence in 2002.

But the new facility is both undeclared to the international community and perhaps too small to be very useful as a fuel fabrication plant. “The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” President Obama said in a brief statement. Obama, together with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French Prime Minister Nicholas Sarkozy, condemned the plant, the existence of which emerged just a day after the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for tough action against those who violate the NPT.

Iran’s response to all this has been muted so far. In a letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nation admitted to “a new pilot fuel enrichment plant”, according to a statement from the agency. No nuclear material has yet been introduced into the facility and inspectors are seeking access as soon as possible.

Given the growing international momentum against Iran, the Islamic Republic should probably let nuclear inspectors come to Qom soon to check out all the sites ASAP.