Scott Peterson:

Dismissing American concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Russia on February 27 cemented its commitment to Iran’s atomic-energy programme by signing a deal for the supply and return of Russian nuclear fuel for Iran’s Bushehr reactor. The agreement takes Iran a significant step closer to becoming a nuclear-energy power, and builds on an $800 million contract for Russia to finish the plant in Bushehr, Iran.

Washington frequently criticises Iranian-Russian nuclear cooperation, a point raised again by President Bush during a summit last Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Spent nuclear fuel can be reprocessed to yield plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs. The fuel deal is expected to enhance Iran’s capabilities, but non-proliferation experts and diplomats say it also adds new safeguards. Potential weapons capability, they say, would be more likely to arise from Iran’s efforts to create its own self-contained fuel cycle.

The fuel deal comes on the eve of a meeting in Vienna Monday of the 35- member board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which discusses Iran’s case every three months. In the past two years, IAEA inspections have uncovered nuclear projects in Iran that were kept secret for 18 years. IAEA officials say that nothing new has turned up on the Iran file for six months; Putin says he is “convinced” that Iran has rejected nuclear weapons.

The first shipment of 90 tons of enriched-uranium fuel has already been produced and is waiting in Siberia. Iran has said it wants to build a handful of reactors, and Russia hopes to win those lucrative contracts. Russia will supply the fuel to run the Bushehr plant, which is scheduled to be operational by next year, and then send back all the spent fuel to Russia. The US says that any contribution to Iran’s nuclear know-how can build its nuclear potential, though under the NPT, any signatory has the right to pursue peaceful nuclear programmes.

But many Western capitals worry that Iran’s nuclear programme is aimed at building nuclear weapons. Throughout the IAEA inspection process, Iran has been engaged diplomatically with Britain, France, and Germany in an attempt to forestall a US effort to haul Iran before the UN Security Council. Iran would be expected to explain NPT violations that the US would like to see lead to sanctions or more severe action.

European diplomats forged a deal with Tehran late last year that led to Iran’s suspension of all enrichment activities. But last Friday, Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rohani, reaffirmed that Iran had “no such intention” of ever meeting US and European demands to permanently end enrichment plans. In a neighbourhood that counts Israel, Pakistan, and India as nuclear-armed, pursuit of nuclear weapons is a rare issue that transcends deep political divisions and unites many Iranians.

US pressure on Moscow and the three European nations to take a tougher line on Iran has been challenged at the IAEA and by Iran itself, which claims that it is being deprived of its right to develop nuclear expertise, while other nations like Israel have gotten away with undeclared programmes. The Russians, too, have increased their concern for safeguards in the nuclear-fuel process about Iran’s nuclear intentions. — The Christian Science Monitor