Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Russia will resume nukes cooperation with Iran
10/7/2004 1:00:00 PM GMT


Iran's Bushehr nuclear power reactor under construction in southwestern Iran.


Russia will resume its nukes cooperation with Iran, a top Russian official said Thursday, despite international pressures on Tehran over its nuclear program.

"We have been cooperating and will continue to cooperate with Iran in the peaceful usage of nuclear energy," Interfax news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Alexeyev as saying.

"It does not matter if there is pressure or not, but it does matter that we will comply with all legal commitments in cooperation with Iran."

Russia is completing work on an $800 million deal to construct a nuclear facility at Bushehr in southern Iran.

The U.S. and Israel claim that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies the allegations and insists that its program is mainly aimed at the peaceful generation of electricity.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has been investigating Iran’s nuclear activities for almost two decades.

Last week, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said that Iran is not developing any nuclear weapons program and that the issue of Iran’s nuclear file must be resolved diplomatically to avoid going through a similar bitter experience like Iraq.

Russia has repeatedly stressed that Iran has the right to develop a peaceful nuclear energy program, but it had urged Iran to voluntarily suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment as a goodwill gesture.

U.S. possesses 200 nuclear air bombs in Western Europe

The American administration is worried about the deployment of nukes in Russia's Kaliningrad region, whereas Russia denies the nuclear presence in the region and reminds Washington of the 200 B-51 nuclear air bombs it possesses in Western Europe.

The Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Stephen Rademaker, said that the U.S. administration is seriously concerned with Russia's failure to reduce tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

The United States announced in 1991 that the American tactical nuclear weapons in Europe would be considerably reduced. At the same time, Russian President Boris Yeltsin said that he would reduce nuclear arms, but the U.S. administration believes that Russia failed to fulfill its commitments.

Rademaker said that U.S. specialists suspect that many Russian companies are providing assistance to Iran in the development of long-range missiles. He noted that Iran possesses 2,000-kilometer distant missiles, which cannot reach the USA but warned that the range could be increased in the future.

Rademaker's statements have probably been timed to the upcoming visit of the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Iran. The visit is planned for October 10-11 and the talks will focus on the nuclear cooperation between Iran and Russia.

The Russian Foreign Ministry did not comment on Rademaker's statements.


http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=5166