Obama condemns Iran's nuclear program

President Barack Obama on Friday reprimanded Iranian leaders after evidence surfaced that the state was secretly building a second nuclear refinement site, despite international warning and condemnation.

Obama's harsh words -- later echoed in kind by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy -- arrive but a day after those three world leaders and the U.N. Security Council signaled the body's renewed focus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

"Now, Iran's decision to build yet another nuclear facility without notifying the IAEA represents a direct challenge to the basic compact at the center of the nonproliferation regime," Obama said from the G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh. "These rules are clear: All nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy, those nations with nuclear weapons must move toward disarmament, those nations without nuclear weapons must forsake them."

"Iran has a right to peaceful nuclear power that meets the energy needs of its people. But the size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program," the president added.

Iran itself informed the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) this week that it had secretly constructed its second uranium enrichment plant, Obama said. Its conduct, he explained, violated international law and threatened both the security of the region and the future of negotiations about the state's clandestine nuclear program.

"[W]e have met yesterday for a meeting -- a summit meeting of the Security Council on disarmament and nuclear disarmament. I repeated my conviction that Iran was taking the international community on a dangerous path," Sarkozy said. "I have recalled all the attempts that we have made to offer a negotiated solution to the Iranian leaders without any success, which what has been revealed today is exceptional."

"I am expecting from the IAEA an exhaustive, strict and rigorous investigation," he added.

Friday's news is likely to galvanize Iran's most staunch opponents in Congress, who have signaled with increasing intensity they wish to impose new sanctions on Tehran.