U.S. Calls on Russia to Freeze Nuclear Cooperation with Iran

MosNews
Oct. 04, 2005

The United States, in a message aimed at Russia, called on governments involved in nuclear projects in Iran to immediately freeze those projects, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Stephen Rademaker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, said nations should tighten their policies following last month’s finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran should be reported to the UN Security Council because it failed to convince the international community that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.

“We think it is self-evident, for example, that in the face of such a finding, no government should permit new nuclear transfers to Iran, and all ongoing nuclear projects should be frozen,” Rademaker told the UN General Assembly’s disarmament committee.

Although he did not mention Russia by name, and later declined to elaborate on his remarks in any way, Moscow is building a $1 billion civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran and has agreed to supply it with fuel.

In Moscow, a source in the Russian nuclear industry close to the Bushehr project said Rademaker appeared to be speaking for himself and not the Bush administration.

“This is obviously an opinion of an individual, not of the U.S. government. Officially the U.S. government has said many times it saw no problem with our Bushehr project,” the source was quoted by Reuters as saying on condition of anonymity.

“Both (U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice and the IAEA have been positive about this project,” the source said.

Rice, on a trip to Moscow in April, said that Russia’s handling of the Bushehr project had been helpful in terms of preserving the global non-proliferation regime.

Rademaker said he hoped the resolution adopted on Sept. 24 by the governing board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would help persuade Tehran to return to negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.

“Should Iran decline to do so, however, the (IAEA) Board of Governors will have no alternative but to fulfill its obligation under the IAEA statute and the recently adopted board resolution to report the matter to the United Nations,” he said.

“In the case of Iran, IAEA investigations have exposed almost two decades of clandestine nuclear work, as well as a pattern of evasion and deception, that can only be explained as part of an illegal nuclear weapons program,” he said.

The IAEA resolution, approved 22-1 with 12 abstentions, also highlighted the split between Western nations and others such as Russia, China and South Africa, which disagree with the three EU nations and Washington on how to deal with Iran.

The Security Council has the power to impose sanctions on Iran, but Russia and China, as permanent members with veto powers, could block them if they chose to.

Iran denies it is seeking atomic bombs and says its nuclear program is only for generating electricity. But it concealed its atomic fuel program from the IAEA for 18 years, Reuters added.