Russia, Iran closing in on nuclear pact

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran and Russia said Sunday they were close to finalizing a long-delayed protocol on returning spent nuclear fuel to Russia, paving the way for the launch of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in southern Iran in 2006.

Russia has said it will not ship nuclear fuel to Iran until both countries sign an agreement under which all spent fuel would be returned to Russia. The agreement is intended to prevent Iran from using spent fuel to make nuclear weapons.

“The agreement on returning spent nuclear fuel is in the final stage,” Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in Tehran. “I think it will be signed soon.”

The signing has been delayed repeatedly by what both countries say are mainly financial details. Iran says it doesn’t have facilities to store the spent fuel. Moscow wants Iran to pay in order to take back the fuel to Russia.

The fuel agreement will pave the way for the inauguration in 2006 of Iran’s first light-water 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor being built by Russia in Bushehr, southern Iran.

It was not immediately clear exactly when the agreement would be signed.

The $800 million Bushehr contract has drawn years of protests from the United States, which says the project could help Tehran build nuclear weapons.

Lavrov, who arrived Sunday on an official visit, also called on Iran to implement a demand from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog, that it freeze all work on uranium enrichment activities, including uranium reprocessing, a technology that can be to produce nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons.

“The IAEA board has called on Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment activities voluntarily, not as an obligation,” he said. “This is to the interests of Iran and all that Tehran responds positively to IAEA.”

Iranian counterpart Kamal Kharrazi swiftly rejected the call.

“It is Iran’s legitimate right to master nuclear technology including uranium enrichment,” Kharrazi told reporters. “There is no talk of stopping it. It’s not something Iran can accept.”

“However, Iran is open to any proposal or mechanism to ensure that it won’t go towards nuclear weapons.”

Iran is not prohibited from uranium enrichment under its obligations to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. But for months it has faced international pressure to suspend such activities as a good-faith gesture.

Iran said last week it has converted a few tons of raw uranium into a gas, a key to achieving the nuclear proficiency it covets, risking confrontation with an international community that fears Tehran’s goal is to create atomic weapons, not nuclear energy.

Under international pressure, Iran last year suspended actual uranium enrichment — injecting hexafluoride gas into centrifuges used to enrich uranium — and says it still remains committed to the pledge.

However, Tehran has rejected demands to stop all other activities related to uranium enrichment, like building centrifuges and converting raw uranium.

Iran’s conservative-dominated parliament is already considering legislation to force the government to re-sume actual uranium enrichment, which, if approved, will end Iran’s pledge not to inject gas into centrifuges.

Iran’s nuclear program has become a matter of national pride and is one of few issues where the conservative parliament and reformist government of President Mohammad Khatami agree.