UNITED NATIONS — Iran’s president is accusing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of parroting Western criticism of its new uranium enrichment facility instead of waiting for a report from the U.N. nuclear agency, Iran’s U.N. Mission said Tuesday.

The Iranian mission said in a statement that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad expressed “grave concern” during a meeting with Ban on Friday that the U.N. chief had “chosen to repeat the same allegations that (a) few Western powers are making.”

Following Friday’s disclosure of the new facility, Ban expressed “grave concern” about Iran’s continued uranium enrichment, as did the leaders of the United States, Britain and France.

The secretary-general, asked at a news conference Tuesday about the Iranian Mission’s statement, said that he responded to Ahmadinejad’s criticism by telling the president that the newly disclosed facility violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. Later, he called the Iranian nuclear issue “very serious, even dangerous.”

The resolutions call for Iran to suspend uranium enrichment and return to negotiations on its nuclear program, which the U.S. and its European allies believe is aimed at producing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its program is purely peaceful and aimed solely at producing nuclear energy, which is allowed under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Ban said he also told Ahmadinejad during Friday’s meeting that Iran needs to open all its facilities to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, and be completely transparent.

“I made it quite clear that when they argue that their nuclear facilities are genuinely for peaceful purposes the burden of proof is on their side,” he said.

Ahmadinejad said Friday his country has complied with requirements to inform the IAEA six months before a new enrichment facility becomes operational, and was giving 18 months notice.

Iran has agreed to allow the IAEA to inspect the new facility. At the news conference Tuesday, Ban was asked why he didn’t wait for the U.N. nuclear agency to issue its report, as Ahmadinejad said.

“To be transparent and credible, when you have such an intent to build facilities, they should have informed — notified the IAEA long time before, not just before everything would be completed,” Ban replied.

“That’s what I’m raising. So there is a question of transparency. That is why the world leaders have expressed their deep concern and that is why I have also expressed my concern,” he said.

“I urged him that Iran as (a) historically rich and proud country should take the constructive role in the international community by making very transparent and directly involvement and engagement in negotiations to prove all the pending issues,” Ban said.

The secretary-general said he had “much more candid discussions” later Tuesday with Iran’s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

He said he told Mottaki he was “troubled that Iran is criticized,” in the same manner as North Korea, and offered U.N. help for the country “to find some proper place in the international community.”

But to achieve this, he said, Iran has to prove it is completely transparent and gives the IAEA full access to its nuclear facilities.

“I said, Have you informed the IAEA when you had the blueprint (for the new facility)?” Ban told a luncheon roundtable at the United Nations Foundation. “You have done it after you have finished all this completion of the construction, in a very remote mountainside underground. Then, it’s not true, complete transparency. That’s what I’m asking.”

Ban was asked about Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between Iran and the six key powers that have been trying for years to negotiate with Iran on its nuclear program — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.

He said he told the Iranians that IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told him he believes the first package of incentives that the six countries offered Tehran in return for suspending enrichment in 2006 “was not enough” — but a second revamped package the six put on the table in 2008 “is a good one (and) you can negotiate it.”

Asked how Mottaki responded, Ban said, “he didn’t have much to say.”

“I don’t know how this negotiation will go,” the U.N. chief added.

The 2008 package of economic, technological and political incentives to Tehran offers to help Iran develop a peaceful nuclear energy program and improve economic and diplomatic relations with the six countries and the European Union, on condition in suspends uranium enrichment.

“I sincerely hope that all these questions pertaining this new facility and other facilities — all the pending issues concerning nuclear development programs of Iran should be resolved through dialogue in a transparent and objective manner with (the) international atomic agency involved,” Ban said.

The Iranian Mission’s statement said Ahmadinejad raised other issues including Iran, Afghanistan and the Palestinian question.

Ahmadinejad has come under strong attack for denying the Holocaust and calling for Israel’s destruction.

Ban said he appealed to Mottaki: “Don’t let your president make such controversial remarks.”

“When he said he’s not a historian, why does he make historical judgments himself?” Ban asked.

The mission’s statement said Ahmadinejad stated during Friday’s meeting with Ban that “Iran condemns all the killings of innocent people that have occurred throughout the history including the killing of tens of millions of civilians in World War II.”

Ahmadinejad told Ban that Iran “believes that there is no justification for these killings, nor can there be any justification for the attempts made by some, particularly by the Zionist regime, to commit new genocides and crimes and to perpetrate a new holocaust in Palestine by referring to the Holocaust,” the mission’s statement said.

Ban would not provide any details on the mission’s statement regarding prisoners in Iran, an issue he apparently raised with Ahmadinejad, or Iranian prisoners in the United States.

The Iranian Mission said Ahmadinejad expects the secretary-general “to devote similar attention to the Iranian nationals who are either detained or imprisoned in U.S. while they are innocent and while they have been denied of their basic rights.”

In this Aug. 16 2009, the Toyota logo shines off the nose of a 2010 Camry sedan at a Toyota dealership in Centennial, Colo. Photo by (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

David Zalubowski