Russia, Iran agree nuclear power station timetable
Foreign Desk Report

MOSCOW—Russia and Iran have settled all differences over the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power station and agreed on a time-table for its completion, the Russian contractor building the station said on Thursday. “We have resolved all the problems with the Iranians,” said Sergei Shmatko, president of Atomstroiexport. “We have agreed with our Iranian colleagues a timeframe for completing the plant and we will make an announcement at the end of December.”
Russia’s role in building the Bushehr plant on the Gulf is at the centre of a diplomatic dispute. Western powers, which suspect Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon, have pressed Moscow to drop the project. Tehran says its nuclear program is exclusively intended to generate electricity and Moscow has dismissed concerns the Bushehr project would hand Iran sensitive technology that could help in a bomb-making program.
Russia had earlier suspended construction at Bushehr, saying Iran had failed to make payments for the work. Some observers say Moscow has been wary of the diplomatic outcry that could result when it delivers nuclear fuel to Bushehr. Shmatko said the delivery of fuel — after which the plant can begin operating within six months — would go ahead, though he did not reveal details of the timetable. “We absolutely, definitely intend to build the Bushehr atomic power station and intend definitely to deliver the fuel to the plant,” said Shmatko.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, the rocky resumption of the Middle East peace process, instability in Lebanon and uncertainty in Iraq will dominate Bush administration foreign policy concerns during its final year. In a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press in her State Department office, Rice said Wednesday that Iran and North Korea, two of the three charter members of President Bush’s “axis of evil,” have a long way to go before shedding that tag despite recent developments.
“They are clearly still states about which there are significant proliferation concerns,” Rice said. “It would be very irresponsible not to deal with those dangers.” Her comments follow the release of new U.S. intelligence that finds Tehran stopped nuclear weapons development in 2003 and apparent progress in efforts to get Pyongyang to abandon its atomic arms program, including unprecedented political and cultural exchanges.
A day after the New York Philharmonic announced it would play a concert in the North Korean capital and a week after word of a personal letter from Bush to leader of the communist nation, Kim Jong Il, Rice downplayed the significance of both. “This is not a regime that the United States is prepared to engage broadly,” she said. “If we are going to engage it broadly, it’s clear in the program that we have laid out how that would happen, after denuclearization.
“What matters first and foremost is that we deal with the nuclear weapons programs, all of them, of the North Koreans,” Rice said. “It remains a country that is dangerously armed and a considerable threat on both the proliferation front and its own program.” The letter offered the possibility for better relations with the United States if North Korea lives up to the deal it made, and underscored U.S. expectations. While unremarkable in content, the letter was a symbolic gesture to a leader Bush has ridiculed and ostracized.
As the administration tries to cope with Iran after a U.S. intelligence reassessment that the Islamic republic shelved its nuclear weapons four years ago, Rice said Tehran is still a threat.