[R-G] Iran Receives Nuclear Fuel in Blow to U.S.

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

The Russians delivered, after all. -- Yoshie

<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/world/middleeast/18diplo.html>
December 18, 2007
Iran Receives Nuclear Fuel in Blow to U.S.
By HELENE COOPER

WASHINGTON — The United States lost a long battle when Russia, as it
announced on Monday, delivered nuclear fuel to an Iranian power plant
that is at the center of an international dispute over its nuclear
program. Iran, for its part, confirmed on Monday plans to build a
second such plant.

In announcing that it had delivered the first shipment of
enriched-uranium fuel rods to the power plant, at Bushehr in southern
Iran, on Sunday, Russian officials said that while the fuel was in
Iran, it would be under the control of the International Atomic Energy
Agency, the nuclear monitoring agency for the United Nations. Russia
also said the Iranian government had guaranteed that the fuel would be
used only for the power plant.

The Bush administration took pains not to criticize the Russian move
publicly, even expressing support for outside supplies if that led
Iran to suspend its nuclear enrichment program.

"If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the
Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich," President Bush said
Monday. "If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear
power plant, then there's no need for them to learn how to enrich."

But from the American standpoint, the timing could not have been
worse, coming just two weeks after the release of a United States
intelligence estimate that concluded that Iran stopped its nuclear
weapons program in 2003. The National Intelligence Estimate also
concluded that Iran had not restarted its nuclear weapons program as
of mid-2007, undercutting a central tenet of the Bush administration's
basis for maintaining international pressure against Iran.

While administration officials maintain that the intelligence estimate
does not mean that the United States and its allies should ease the
pressure, the practical consequence of the report has been to embolden
Iran. It has also made it more likely that China and Russia, two of
the countries with perhaps the smallest appetite for sanctions against
Iran, will not agree to a new round of tough sanctions by the United
Nations Security Council.

Russia's decision to deliver fuel to Bushehr further encourages Iran,
several administration officials and European diplomats said
privately. They did not speak for attribution because they had not
been authorized to discuss the matter publicly.

The White House took a different tack in its comments. "There is no
doubt that Russia and the rest of the world want to keep Iran from
getting a nuclear weapon," said a White House spokesman, Gordon D.
Johndroe. "And today's announcement provides one more avenue for the
Iranians to make a strategic choice to suspend enrichment."

But privately, administration officials said they had been hoping,
with dwindling confidence, that Russia would continue to stall on
delivering the fuel, in part to send a message to Iran that the United
States and its European, Chinese and Russian allies were hanging tough
in their attempts to punish Iran for refusing to suspend enrichment.

"We for many years tried to stop it, and for the last year we've known
there was no way to stop it, and that it was coming, and we held our
breath on the timing," a senior administration official said.

Indeed, Iran said it had no intention of suspending its uranium
enrichment just because it had received the fuel shipment for Bushehr,
and it even confirmed that it intended to enrich uranium for another
new nuclear power plant in the south of the country, the Fars news
agency reported.

Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the chief of the Iranian Atomic Energy
Organization, said Iran needed to produce fuel for a second plant
under construction. "We are building a 360-megawatt indigenous power
plant in Darkhovin," Mr. Aghazadeh said.

"The fuel for this plant needs to be produced by Natanz enrichment
plant," he added, according to the news agency.

Darkhovin is a city in the southern province of Khuzistan, north of
Bushehr, which is better known for its oil fields. Natanz is the site
where Iran has been installing centrifuges for uranium enrichment.

Both Bushehr and Darkhovin were projects planned before the 1979
revolution, and then abandoned. It was not clear how much construction
had been carried out at Darkhovin.

Construction of Bushehr has been hindered by repeated delays, most of
them a symptom of Russia's uneasiness about Iran's nuclear intentions,
European and American diplomats said. This year, Russia delayed a fuel
shipment expected in March, accusing Iran of tardiness in making its
monthly payments of $25 million. At the time, Bush administration
officials privately expressed satisfaction about the delay and
attributed Russia's move, in part, to its desire to help the West
pressure Iran into more openness about its nuclear program.

Last week, Sergei Shmatko, the director of Atomstroyexport, the
Russian contractor responsible for the plant, announced that Russia
and Iran had ended their financial disputes over the project, although
he did not indicate a date for when the long-awaited opening would
occur.

Irina F. Esipova, a spokeswoman for Atomstroyexport, said Bushehr
would be ready technically to operate no sooner than six months after
all the uranium fuel rods needed to power the station were delivered.

Russia alerted Bush administration officials two weeks ago that the
fuel shipment was going ahead, administration officials said. The
officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not
authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said Russia agreed to put
certain safeguards in place to allow for greater international
inspections at Bushehr.

The United States had already agreed in principle that it was
acceptable for Russia to provide the fuel to Iran, as long as there
were safeguards to handle the spent fuel. Administration officials
said they decided that the United States had no choice but to concede
that it could no longer keep prodding Russia to delay shipping the
fuel.

But "when I was under secretary for arms control, we spent a lot of
time trying — successfully — to convince the Russians not to ship the
fuel," John R. Bolton, the former United States ambassador to the
United Nations, said in an interview on Monday.

He said he believed that Russia's latest actions reflected a change in
the people who were dealing with Russia's nuclear program, a change of
heart by President Vladimir V. Putin and the economics of the deal.

Nazila Fathi contributed reporting from Tehran, and Michael Schwirtz
from Moscow.

--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>