MOSCOW Ñ Russia has pledged to continue nuclear cooperation with Iran, insisting this project is no different than similar ones with China and India.

Russian officials said Moscow will proceed with plans to complete a nuclear reactor in Iran by 2004 despite U.S. pressure. The officials said the Russian government maintains that the aid to Iran is for civilian nuclear projects.

Over the weekend, Russian Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said his country would complete the Iranian nuclear plant at Bushehr. Rumyantsev said the Bushehr project is to produce energy for peaceful purposes.

Rumyantsev told the Interfax news agency that the Bushehr project is similar to Russian nuclear projects in China and India. Those projects were also civilian nuclear eactors.

The officials said Russia's nuclear production will increase by 350 percent during 2002. The industry will also include the export of nuclear fuel.

Russia wants to obtain a proposed Iranian contract for a second nuclear reactor. Talks between the two countries are expected to take place within weeks.

Israel has warned that Russia's help to Iran will allow the Islamic republic to achieve nuclear weapons capability by as early as 2004 or 2005. Israeli officials said Iran is using Russian technology and training to carry out a nuclear weapons project.

In Teheran, Iran has expressed anger over U.S. efforts to stop Teheran's nuclear weapons project. "Although the Islamic republic of Iran today is one of the important powers in the world's arms industry, it has never been after acquiring unconventional weapons and will never be," former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a leading aide of the regime, said.

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