Russia Qualifies Its Nuclear Cooperation with Iran
Date: 10-Jun-04
Country: USA
Author: Richard Balmforth
The thorny issue of Russia's plans to construct a $800- million reactor at Bushehr was raised with Russia's Vladimir Putin by President Bush who has branded Iran part of the so-called "axis of evil."
"We have cooperated with Iran and will continue to cooperate with Iran in nuclear power generation," Sergei Prikhodko, a senior Putin aide, told reporters after talks between the two leaders at the Group of Eight summit of industrial countries.
"This is conditional on Iran fulfilling the International Atomic Energy Agency's conditions and the extent to which we can, bilaterally, solve all remaining technical problems concerning construction of the Bushehr power plant," he added.
The issue of Iran's atomic program, which the United States says is a front for developing nuclear weapons, cropped up too in discussions between Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder -- indicating Washington's desire to forge a common view among the G8 of the threat it sees posed by Iran.
"I would say Schroeder and Bush share a degree of skepticism about Iran's intentions," a senior U.S. administration official said, adding that Washington was lobbying other of the European G8 members -- Britain, France and Italy -- on the issue.
Tehran says its atomic program is peaceful and denies U.S. charges that it is trying to develop a nuclear weapon covertly. It says it needs nuclear energy to meet booming demand for electricity and keep oil and gas reserves for export.
Earlier on Tuesday, France, Britain and Germany, in a draft resolution, called for a sharp rebuke of Iran by the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog.
The text, seen by Reuters, calls for IAEA inspections to continue and urges "Iran to take all the necessary steps on an urgent basis to resolve all outstanding questions" on its atomic program, which Washington says is a front for developing arms.
It was not clear, however, if the G8 leaders meeting on Sea Island, Georgia would succeed in reaching anything more than a generalized statement on Iran.
"I think that the leaders' statement tomorrow, hopefully, will show that, in fact, they are united, unmistakably united, in their determination that Iran not achieve nuclear weapons ... there is no division among the G8 that a nuclear weapons-equipped Iran would be unacceptable," another senior administration official told reporters.
MOSCOW UNDER PRESSURE
The United States has been pressing Moscow hard to think twice about building the Bushehr reactor, saying it fears the Islamic republic may use the project as a cover for the transfer of other sensitive nuclear technology.
Russia says Iran could not produce a nuclear bomb, even using Moscow's nuclear technology, but all the same has told Tehran it must agree to a deal to return spent fuel from the reactor to Moscow.
Such a deal could help alleviate U.S. concerns that Iranian scientists could extract plutonium from spent fuel and potentially use it in warheads.
A Kremlin official, who did not wish to be named, said however that the Iranians were trying to wring concessions from the Russian side over the deal.
He did not elaborate but said: "They are trying as usual to pull the blanket toward them. But we will only start work on the plant only when contractual problems are solved."
In theory, once this deal has been signed -- possibly in summer -- the 1,000-megawatt reactor could go on stream in 2005. The plant was originally supposed to start up in 2003.
