Iran's Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Monday that arch-foe Israel was too weak to carry out any attack on Tehran's nuclear sites.

Mottaki's remarks reported by Mehr news agency came as a team of UN inspectors were conducting checks on Tehran's recently-revealed second uranium enrichment plant.

Last month's disclosure of the facility which is being built near the Shiite holy city of Qom had outraged Western powers and Israel.

"We consider the Zionist regime currently to be in its weakest position and we do not see it has such a capacity" to carry out a strike against Iran's nuclear facilities, Mottaki said when a reporter asked him specifically about such a possibility by Israel.

Iranian officials have said that the Qom uranium enrichment facility was being built inside a mountain near a military base and was heavily guarded to prevent it from any air strike by the United States or Israel.

They have also said that the location of the Qom facility was such that it guarantees that Iran would continue its nuclear drive even if its other atomic facilities are bombed.

Israel, believed to be the Middle East's sole but undeclared nuclear state, has often claimed that a military strike on Tehran's nuclear facilities must always be an option to halt the Islamic republic's galloping atomic programme.

Western powers and Israel suspect Iran's atomic programme is aimed at making nuclear weapons. Tehran strongly denies the charge.