TEHRAN, Jan 9: Iran said on Sunday it has given the UN's atomic watchdog permission to take so-called environmental samples from a suspect military site in order to disprove US allegations of secret weapons-related activities.

"The question is not of a visit the military installations of Parchin. The agency had asked to take samples from the green areas of Parchin because the Americans and others have made accusations," foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi told reporters.

"To demonstrate that we have nothing to hide and that the Iranian nuclear programme is peaceful, we have authorised the agency to take these samples," he added. Last week the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, announced that Iran had finally given the green light for his inspectors to probe Parchin, a huge military complex 30 kilometres southeast of Tehran.

The United States has alleged the Iranians may be working on testing high-explosive charges with an inert core of depleted uranium at Parchin as a sort of dry test for how a bomb with fissile material would work.

Environmental sampling involves taking swabs or soil samples to detect the presence of nuclear activity. The IAEA inspection visit to Parchin is expected to take within the coming days or weeks, officials have said. The IAEA has been seeking access to Parchin since July. Tehran has strongly denied carrying out any nuclear-related work at the site. -AFP