Russia Demands Iran Atom Compliance It Refuses to Deliver Nuclear Fuel Unless Enrichment is Halted

By Elaine Sciolino

Russia privately has informed Iran that it will not deliver nuclear fuel for the Bushehr nuclear power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment activities, as demanded by the United Nations Security Council, European and Iranian officials said.

The Russian ultimatum is important because it reflects Moscow’s increasing displeasure and frustration with Iran over its refusal to stop enriching uranium at its vast facility at Natanz.

Russia remains uneasy with the ratcheting up of sanctions against Iran in the Security Council. But Russia also has vast commercial interests in Iran. It regularly talks to the Iranians on nuclear issues. It has tried to use its influence to persuade Iran of the potential consequences of its actions and to get negotiations back on track.

Russia also could be motivated by self-interest. The Russian Atomic Energy Agency, known as Rosatom, is eager to become a major player in the global nuclear energy market. As Security Council action against Iran has gained momentum and as its isolation increases, involvement with Iran’s Bushehr project may detract from Rosatom’s reputation.

The ultimatum was delivered by Igor Ivanov, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council, to Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran’s deputy chief nuclear negotiator, at a meeting in Moscow last week, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because a confidential diplomatic exchange between two governments was involved.

In a flurry of public comments in the past month, Russian officials have acknowledged that Russia is delaying the delivery of fuel to the reactor in the port city of Bushehr. It attributed the decision to the failure of Iran to pay what it owes, not to nuclear proliferation concerns.

But last month, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov informed some European officials that Russia had made a political decision not to deliver the fuel, adding that Russia would state publicly that the sole reason was financial, European officials said.

“We consider this a very important decision by the Russians,” said one senior European official. “It shows that our disagreements with the Russians about the dangers of Iran’s nuclear program are tactical. Fundamentally, the Russians don’t want a nuclear Iran.”

Members of the Security Council are moving toward a vote this week on a draft resolution imposing further sanctions on Iran for its defiance of demands that it suspend its enrichment activities and return to negotiations over its nuclear program.

The resolution focuses on Iran’s arms exports, a leading Iranian bank and the elite Revolutionary Guards military force. It would reduce Iran’s access to foreign currency and isolate the bank, Bank Sepah, from international financing.

Throughout the negotiations, the Russians tried to water down the resolution, a reflection of both their desire to avoid a backlash in Iran and their strong skepticism about the effectiveness of sanctions.

The pending resolution follows on a resolution passed last December that required four months of negotiations, in large part because of Russia’s resistance. Among Russia’s objections were sanctions that could curb its project in Bushehr, and Russia’s support came only after an initial proposal to impose curbs on Bushehr had been dropped.

Russian officials have gone out of their way to avoid making a public linking between the Bushehr project and the crisis over Iran’s decision to forge ahead with producing more enriched uranium. Depending on the level of enrichment, the process can be used to produce electricity or weapons.

In remarks Sunday, for example, Ivanov said there should be no linkage between discussions on Iran’s nuclear program and the Bushehr plant. “It is a separate issue,” he told a conference of Russia’s Foreign and Defense Policies Council. “All the work being done is under strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” the UN monitoring agency, which is based in Vienna.

He also cautioned against using possible nuclear sanctions for other purposes, saying, “We oppose attempts to use this issue as an instrument of pressure or interference in Iran’s internal affairs.”

But Ivanov also called on Iran to resolve outstanding questions with the agency about its nuclear program and to stop enriching uranium. The Russians have been pressing Iran to make some sort of pause in its uranium enrichment that might allow the Security Council process to halt and get Iran back to negotiations.

“The clock must be stopped: Iran must freeze uranium enrichment,” he said. “The UN Security Council will then take a break, too, and the parties would gather at the negotiating table.”

For more than a decade, Russia has been working under a $1 billion contract to complete the Bushehr nuclear facility, an ambitious project begun with Germany during the time of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. After the 1979 revolution, the project was halted; then the site was bombed by Iraq during its eight-year war with Iran. When Iran decided to complete the facility after the war ended, Germany, under pressure from the United States, refused to finish the project or even to provide Moscow with the original blueprints.

For years, the United States opposed Russia’s involvement in the project, but then essentially accepted the project. Russia has given assurances that the spent fuel would be shipped back to Russia.

The project, already eight years behind schedule, is almost complete. Last year, Russia agreed to ship low-enriched fuel to the plant in southern Iran by this month and to start operating the facility in September, with electricity generation to start by November.

But in mid-February, Russia claimed that Iran had not made the last two $25 million monthly payments, after insisting that it be allowed to pay in euros instead of dollars. Russian officials also cited a delay in the delivery of safety equipment from an unspecified third country as a secondary reason for the decision.

Iranian officials denied that payments had been delayed. “Iran has had no delay whatsoever in making payments for the Bushehr nuclear power plant,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, was quoted by the Islamic Republic News Agency as saying after the Russian decision.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.