Steve Quayle News Alerts

July 30, 2002
From Robin Shepherd in Moscow

RUSSIA and the United States are heading for a row after the Russian Government said it would build five nuclear reactors in Iran, dismissing Western security concerns as “groundless”.

On Friday the Government quietly published on its official website the plan to build a further five reactors without making any other comment. The plan, which is part of a broader ten-year economic co-operation project, envisages three more reactors at the Bushehr site and another two at a new power station at Akhvaz, about 65 miles from the Iraqi border.

President Bush accuses the Islamic republic of sponsoring terrorism and has said that Iran, with Iraq and North Korea, forms part of an “axis of evil” which threatens America’s national security.

He also warned the Russian Government in May that its nuclear links with Iran could help that country to develop nuclear weapons.

US-Russian relations, which reached a high point after President Putin’s forthright support for United States operations in Afghanistan, have been severely tested since Russia began building a 1,000-megawatt reactor at the Iranian town of Bushehr on the Gulf.

State Department officials have expressed concern and the Administration is likely to issue strong protests. The issue is expected to be formally raised by Spencer Abraham, the US Energy Secretary, who arrives in Moscow for talks this week.

Meanwhile, a spokesman for Mikhail Kasyanov, Prime Minister of Russia, said yesterday that the project should not be a matter of concern to the West because it could not help Iran to develop weapons of mass destruction.

“We are only talking about peaceful, economic co-operation, with no connection to the military. It can offer no help to Iran in making nuclear weapons,” Alexei Gorshkov, the Prime Minister’s spokesman, said. “The fears of our Western friends and partners are groundless.” He also confirmed that Mr Kasyanov had personally approved the project.

The latest plans appear to contradict statements made in the past by the Russian Atomic Energy Minister, who has said that nuclear co-operation with Iran would probably end with the Bushehr project. Russian and Iranian officials are due to sign the new deal at a meeting in Iran in September.

If the plans do come to fruition, they would be a blow to American efforts to stifle Iran’s nuclear programme and would almost certainly sour US-Russian relations.

As recently as July 9 Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said the United States and Russia were making progress on the Iran-Russia nuclear issue. American fears have been echoed by Israel, which in 1981 sent jets to destroy a nuclear reactor near Baghdad. Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, predicted recently that Iran would be a nuclear power by 2005.

The head of Israel’s intelligence service said last month that Iran posed the most serious threat to the stability of the Middle East and that the country was investing large amounts of money in long-range missile construction.

At about the same time, Haaretz, the liberal Israeli newspaper, reported that Israel’s National Security Council was conducting a review of its policy towards Iran. Some Israeli officials would favour military action to prevent Iran developing nuclear weapons, perhaps along the lines of the 1981 attack.

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