#24 - RW 3-4-05 - RW Home
Russia Profile
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March 2, 2005
Russian Nuclear Chief Defends Agreement With Iran
Stresses Reactor Fuel Shipments Comply With International Standards

The head of Russia’s Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom) said Monday that the contract for nuclear fuel deliveries signed between Russia and Iran on the weekend was part of Russia’s responsibilities under international agreements. He also dismissed reports in the Russian press that a one-day delay in the planned signing of the treaty was the result of a disagreement with the Iranian government over the return of spent fuel and the timing of deliveries to the Middle Eastern country.

At a press conference, Alexander Rumyantsev, who heads the agency that replaced Russia’s Atomic Energy Ministry in a structural reform of the federal government last year, said that Russia’s cooperation in building the $1-billion reactor in Bushehr, in southern Iran, was in keeping with the charter of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which he said made it Russia’s responsibility to help Iran develop nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes. Iran is a signatory of the NPT.

“In fact, the NPT requires that states that have already developed the ‘nuclear cycle’ help those countries that have signed the NPT but do not have this complete cycle, to develop their own nuclear energy industry,” Rumyantsev told the press conference.

A number of countries, the United States in particular, have expressed strong concerns over the possibility that Iran might be using its atomic energy program as a cover for attempts to develop nuclear weapons capabilities. At their summit meeting in Bratislava, Slovak Republic in February, Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush stated their commitment to preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

The Russian side says that the deal signed on the weekend will actually help achieve this goal, as the agreement sets out strict terms for the delivery of nuclear fuel to the Iranian reactor and its return once it is spent, all under the inspection regime of the IAEA.

“The fuel which we shall ship to Iran will return in about 10 years, after it exhausts its potential,” Rumyantsev said.

Concern had been raised that the Iranians might hold on to the materials, which could then be used to help the country develop nuclear weapons. On Monday, the daily newspaper Izvestia reported that Iran had insisted on retaining the spent fuel, and that the disagreement over the issue with Rosatom had almost scuttled the deal. Rumyantsev said that there was no basis to the report.

“All of these reports are wrong. If I had not been sure we would sign the contract I would not have gone to Iran,” Rumyantsev said at the press conference.

He also countered media reports that the Iranians had demanded the shipments be made immediately, and not closer to the power plant’s start-up date. The fuel, Rumyantsev said, would not be shipped until the completion of construction, sometime in 2006, and that an exact date for the transfer could not be provided, in accordance with international practice designed to help insure the security of nuclear materials.

Buying nuclear fuel from outside sources, such as Russia, has been put forward as a safer alternative to allowing Iran to enrich uranium for its energy generation program itself, a process that could be taken further to create the necessary materials for developing warheads. Iran has frozen its own enrichment-related activities during negotiations with Britain, France and Germany, who have been working for a commitment from the country to scrap its enrichment program completely. But Iranian officials have said that the freeze will only be temporary.

The United States, which has not been involved in the talks involving the Europeans, has maintained that Iran must halt its enrichment program or face tough measures. Last month, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a meeting of NATO and European Union officials in Brussels that the next step would be to push for a resolution in the UN Security Council, although she said that military measures were “simply not on the agenda at this point in time.”

On Monday, Jackie Sanders, the chief U.S. delegate to the IAEA board of governors again leveled charges against Iran, accusing it of “cynically manipulating the NPT and related programs in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.”

On Monday, Rumyantsev expressed concern over the methods used to address the nuclear issue with Iraq.

“Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). We have no grounds to suspect it of breaching it,” he said. As for its disagreements with the United States, I hope they will be resolved by diplomacy, not by force.”