US presses Russia on Iran nuke project
Foreign Desk Report

UNITED NATIONS—The United States, in a message aimed at Russia, called on governments involved in nuclear projects in Iran to immediately freeze those projects. Stephen Rademaker, the U.S. assistant secretary of State for arms control, said governments should adjust their national policies following last month’s finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran should be reported to the U.N. Security Council because it failed convince the international community that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.
“We think it is self-evident, for example, that in the face of such a finding, no government should permit new nuclear transfers to Iran, and all ongoing nuclear projects should be frozen,” Rademaker told the U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee. Although he did not mention Russia by name, Moscow is building a $1 billion civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran and has agreed to supply it with fuel.
United States, in a message aimed at Russia, called on governments involved in nuclear projects in Iran to immediately freeze those projects. Stephen Rademaker, the US assistant secretary of State for arms control, said nations should tighten their policies following last month’s finding by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran should be reported to the U.N. Security Council because it failed to convince the international community that its nuclear program was entirely peaceful.
“We think it is self-evident, for example, that in the face of such a finding, no government should permit new nuclear transfers to Iran, and all ongoing nuclear projects should be frozen,” Rademaker told the U.N. General Assembly’s disarmament committee. Although he did not mention Russia by name, and later declined to elaborate on his remarks in any way, Moscow is building a $1 billion civilian nuclear reactor at Bushehr in Iran and has agreed to supply it with fuel.
In Moscow, a source in the Russian nuclear industry close to the Bushehr project said Rademaker appeared to be speaking for himself and not the Bush administration. “This is obviously an opinion of an individual, not of the US government. Officially the US government has said many times it saw no problem with our Bushehr project,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
“Both (US Secretary of State Condoleezza) Rice and the IAEA have been positive about this project,” the source said. Rice, on a trip to Moscow in April, said that Russia’s handling of the Bushehr project had been helpful in terms of preserving the global nonproliferation regime. Rademaker said he hoped the resolution adopted September 24 by the Governing Board of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency would help persuade Tehran to return to negotiations with Britain, France and Germany.
“Should Iran decline to do so, however, the (IAEA) Board of Governors will have no alternative but to fulfill its obligation under the IAEA statute and the recently adopted board resolution to report the matter to the United Nations,” he said. “In the case of Iran, IAEA investigations have exposed almost two decades of clandestine nuclear work, as well as a pattern of evasion and deception, that can only be explained as part of an illegal nuclear weapons program,” he said.
The IAEA resolution, approved 22-1 with 12 abstentions, also highlighted the split between Western nations and others such as Russia, China and South Africa, which disagree with the three EU nations and Washington on how to deal with Iran. The Security Council has the power to impose sanctions on Iran, but Russia and China, as permanent members with veto powers, could block them if they chose to.
Iran denies it is seeking atomic bombs and says its nuclear program is only for generating electricity. But it concealed its atomic fuel program from the IAEA for 18 years. Rademaker’s comments were not the first time Washington has advanced the idea that governments should have to forfeit their right to a peaceful nuclear program if they seek nuclear arms.
John Bolton, now the US ambassador to the United Nations, told a U.N. conference on nuclear proliferation in April 2004 that countries developing or acquiring atomic weapons should forfeit the right to nuclear technology for peaceful uses. “The central bargain of the NPT (nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty) is that if nonnuclear weapons states renounce the pursuit of nuclear weapons, they may gain assistance in developing civilian nuclear power,” said Bolton, who was undersecretary of state for disarmament at the time.