Pressure mounts on Russia to abandon project in Iran

Publicly, Iran's contract with Russia to build a nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr is a done deal that no amount of pressure from the US can undo.

But privately, officials here can only be watching with increasing unease as Washington piles daily pressure on Moscow to pull the plug on a project US officials fear is merely a convenient cover for a covert atomic weapons program.

Russia showing no sign of quitting Bushehr, a site now home to hundreds of its technicians who will net an estimated US$8 billion, but the signs are that Moscow is beginning to place tougher conditions on Iran.

"Iran is our neighbor, we cooperate with it and we will continue to cooperate," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at this week's G8 summit in Evian, France, where concerns over Iran's nuclear program featured high on the agenda.

But Putin was quick to add that "in parallel, we will insist that all Iran's nuclear programs remain under the control of the IAEA," the UN's nuclear watchdog.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors are free to tour the plant near the sweltering Persian Gulf coast, provided they give prior notice. The site has been long declared and, as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Iran is obliged to allow IAEA teams to keep a close eye on work there.

But Iran is holding out against signing an additional protocol to the NPT that would empower the IAEA to carry out unannounced probes of other sites that have aroused their suspicions across the Islamic republic.

Tehran, adamant that it has no desire to arm itself with weapons of mass destruction, argues that it is other NPT signatories who are refusing to keep their side of the bargain, notably by helping with the transfer of peaceful nuclear technology.

Such a position has only further alarmed Washington. After all, conjecture over contractual obligations means little when Iran is a standing member of US President George W. Bush's now-dwindled "axis of evil."

So the sentiment among senior officials here is that that argument cannot be strung out much longer, even if foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi has been at pains to stress that Moscow "has commitments with us that it has to respect."

On June 16 and June 17, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei will deliver a report on Iran's nuclear activities.

In Washington, his words are likely to be listened to as closely as the reports on Iraq which he and Hans Blix delivered to the UN Security Council prior to the US-led invasion.

An report and continued Iranian intransigence on the protocol could force Russia to reconsider the deal, regardless of the economic consequences. It would also badly hurt relations with the EU.

"What is important for the Russians is that Iran's nuclear program remains peaceful, just like Iran says it is. They do not want to see Iran with nuclear weapons," explained Elaheh Koulaie, a member of the Iranian parliament's foreign affairs and national security committee.

"So if they have the slightest doubt about Iran's intentions, they will take action. The G8 statement showed that very clearly," Koulaie said after G8 leaders bluntly told both Iran and North Korea to comply with international nuclear safeguards.

A Russian official at the G8 summit in Evian said Moscow has called on Iran to allay concerns before ElBaradei's presentation.

Russia already demanding that Iran return all spent fuel when the reactor is up and running, noting that it could in theory be upgraded to make atomic bombs.

There is also speculation Russia could break the deal in return for US compensation.

On Tuesday, Asefi reiterated the Iranian position that its "nuclear activities ... are completely peaceful and are aimed at meeting the energy needs of the country."

He insisted that Iran had not acted contrary to international rules and that its nuclear programs are "transparent and under the surveillance" of the IAEA.

But as a precaution against a possible Russian pull-out, and having seen China abandon a similar project in Isfahan in 1997 and Germany's Siemens ditch the Bushehr plant after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran is now seeking to become self-sufficient in the nuclear fuel cycle.

"We cannot put our future in the hands of foreigners who come under pressure," explained Iran's President Mohammad Khatami back in February.