A prominent nuclear expert said on Wednesday that new satellite images showed the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran may be a site for research, testing and production of nuclear weapons. Iran denies having an atomic bomb programme.

"This clearly shows the intention to develop weapons," a senior US official told Reuters.

A top Iranian official said the charge that Tehran was hiding an atomic site from UN inspectors was a carefully timed lie intended to influence a resolution on its nuclear program being discussed at this week's meeting of the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

"This is a new lie, like the last 13 lies based on news reports that have been proved to be lies," Hossein Mousavian, Iran's chief delegate to the IAEA board meeting told Reuters.

David Albright, a former weapons inspector who heads the Institute for Science and Inter-national Security think tank, said the IAEA had asked to inspect Parchin but had been ignored.

But Mousavian said: "They have not asked to see the site."

The IAEA declined to comment, but Western diplomats familiar with the talks said Parchin was not a new site for inspectors.

"The IAEA knew about Parchin but didn't include it the report," the US official said, referring to IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei's latest paper on the Iranian nuclear programme.

ElBaradei said on Monday he was not convinced Iran's activities were entirely peaceful, but that there was no hard evidence to prove the US belief that Tehran was using its nuclear power program as a front to build an atom bomb.

Western intelligence agencies have recognized Parchin as a potential chemical, explosives and munitions production site since the 1990s. In November 2003 a Tehran parliamentarian complained publicly too much money was being spent on atomic technology and identified Parchin as a site for such activity.