SUMMIT COULD LAUNCH NEW TALKS ON IRAN
WASHINGTON Ñ The weekend summit between U.S. President George Bush
and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is expected to launch new talks
on Iran's missile and weapons of mass destruction programs.
U.S. officials and analysts said Bush and Putin did not focus on the
issue of Russian aid to Iran's strategic weapons programs. But they said the
two men agreed to provide new impetus to U.S.-Russian
talks on proliferation to Iran.
"I think also possible out of this summit is a new series of expert
discussions on the Iran problem, shutting off Russian assistance to the
Iranian nuclear weapons program, which has been a high priority of the U.S.
government for the past decade, and continues to be in this administration,"
Rose Gottemoeller, a former Energy Department official specializing in
nonproliferation, told a briefing by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace.
Ms. Gottemoeller said Moscow has taken several steps to prepare for what
could be a change in policy toward Iran. She cited the replacement of
Russia's minister of atomic energy, Yevgeny Adamov with Alexander
Rumyantsev.
"Minister Rumyantsev articulated a view much different from that of his
predecessors, who engaged, in my view, in a mixture of denial and
excuse-making with regard to Iran and its nuclear program," she said.
"Rumyantsev is taking a very pragmatic problem-solving approach to this
whole arena and placing an emphasis on what I would call a nothing but
Bushehr policy."
The new Russian approach, Ms.Gottemoeller said, would be to continue the
construction of Iran's light-water nuclear reactor at Bushehr. But she said
Russia would ensure that the facility could not be used for the production
of fissile material required for nuclear weapons.
"The Russians will continue to complete the construction project they
have to build a light water reactor at Bushehr, but turn it into a complete
turnkey black box deal," she said. "Rumyantsev clearly stated when he was
here that the Russians plan to deliver fresh fuel to that reactor just in
time, and take away the spent fuel just in time."
"So there will be no opportunity for the Iranians to essentially begin
to reprocess and so derive weapons-usable nuclear materials from the fuel
coming out of that reactor. I think the United States should be able to work
with this kind of approach, and also work in other areas to enhance
cooperation on export controls and enforcement, for example, that could help
the Russian government stem any flows of technology that are continuing to
occur."
Earlier, Russian experts asserted that Moscow would probably not honor
any commitment to remove fissile material from Bushehr. They also warned
that Bushehr could be used by Teheran for the assembly of nuclear warheads.
