#10 - RW 274
US still hopes to talk Russia round on Iran nukes
By Richard Balmforth

MOSCOW, Sept 18 (Reuters) - The United States is confident proof will soon emerge of a clandestine Iranian nuclear arms programme that will force Russia to drop plans to help Tehran build a nuclear reactor, a top U.S. official said on Thursday.

Speaking in Moscow on condition of anonymity, the senior administration official said Russia would not ship fuel to enable the 1,000-megawatt Bushehr reactor to become active until early next year, giving Washington time to dissuade it:

"Each day that goes by that that has not happened gives more time to see if we can't bring the Russians into closer alignment with our analysis of the threat posed by the Iranian programme."

Tehran denies Washington's accusation it is using Bushehr and other facilities as a front for developing an atomic bomb.

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton met Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak on Wednesday in a new bid to get Moscow to abandon the $800-million Bushehr project, an irritant in relations that will figure prominently when presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush meet at Camp David next week.

Russian officials share concerns at stopping the spread of nuclear arms but say U.S. suspicions against Iran lack proof.

Kislyak, in an interview with the newspaper Vremya Novostei, appeared to confirm Moscow was still moving ahead on the Bushehr plans, saying work was being completed with Iran on a bilateral protocol for the return of spent reactor fuel to Moscow.

The United States is hoping confirmation of its suspicions will emerge from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

That, the U.S. official said, would let Washington raise the issue at the U.N. Security Council, sure at last of support from Russia and others that still doubt Tehran is developing weapons.

"Once it becomes clear that they (the Iranians) have a nuclear weapons programme, Russia will not have civil nuclear cooperation with Iran," the official said.

The IAEA has given Iran until October 31 to enable it to check whether it has an illicit atomic arms programme.

U.S. officials, keen to maintain good personal relations between Putin and Bush, are quick to say that Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran is more a matter of muddled policy than deliberate connivance with one of Washington's adversaries.

But the official said U.S. intelligence was convinced maverick Russian scientists were helping Iran develop weapons.

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