Iran Pledges To Give Back N-Material

Spent fuel from Iran’s Russian-made reactors, potential raw material for nuclear bombs, will be returned to Russia for safeguarding, an Iranian nuclear official said Thursday.

The transfer would meet one of Washington’s objections to the Moscow-Tehran deal.

“We don’t have any use for it,” Mohammad Sadegh Ayatollahi said of the plutonium-laden byproduct of nuclear power production.

The Iranian, in an Associated Press interview, also denied reports by U.S. officials that his country is seeking gas centrifuges from Russia, equipment that could enrich uranium to levels usable for nuclear weapons.

Ayatollahi is Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. He is here for a month-long global conference to extend the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the 25-year-old pact designed to halt the spread of atomic weapons.

The U.S. government, contending Iran harbors secret intentions to produce nuclear weapons, has pressured Russia to scrap its $800 million deal, signed in January, to complete an Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr, on the Persian Gulf. President Clinton cited Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions last Sunday when he announced a U.S. trade embargo against Iran.

The Iranians counter that U.S. interference violates Article IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which guarantees signatory nations the right to energy technology.

A draft of the conference’s final document will underline that guarantee, reaffirming “the inalienable right of countries to have access to nuclear technology and material for peaceful uses,” conference President Jayantha Dhanapala said Thursday.

The Clinton administration has raised various objections at various times to the Russia-Iran deal.

Early this year, Deputy Defense Secretary John Deutch indicated the disposition of the Bushehr plant’s spent fuel was a prime concern. Independent specialists also warned of the dangers of leaving Russian-supplied uranium rods in Iran once they are used, since they could be reprocessed - if Iran obtained the proper equipment - to produce plutonium for weapons.

Russia’s atomic power minister, Viktor N. Mikhailov, told The Associated Press in February the issue remained unresolved. But Ayatollahi said Thursday his government has made its decision.