MOSCOW, May 25: Iran will sign a deal soon with Russia obliging it to return spent fuel from a new nuclear reactor to Moscow, a Russian official said, in a move intended to ease US fears the material could be used to make bombs.
Russia has faced down US opposition to its construction of Iran's 800-million dollar reactor at Bushehr, but it has insisted on the spent fuel deal to alleviate US concerns that Iranian scientists could extract plutonium from spent fuel and potentially use it in warheads.
Alexander Rumyantsev, head of Russia's Atomic Energy Agency, said on Tuesday Moscow and Tehran would sign the document during a visit to Iran this summer, ending years of talks.
"During this trip we plan to sign an additional protocol on the return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage and processing," Itar-Tass news agency quoted Rumyantsev as saying.
The document must be signed before the end of the summer for Bushehr's first 1,000-megawatt reactor to go on-stream in 2005. The plant was originally supposed to start up in 2003.
Russia says Iran could not produce a nuclear bomb, even using Moscow's nuclear technology. Iran, which sits on the world's second largest gas reserves after Russia, also denies the US allegations. It says it needs nuclear energy to meet booming demand for electricity and keep oil and gas reserves for export.
SPENT FUEL TO SIBERIA: Iran's former representative to the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Akbar Salehi, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Iran was still some way from mastering the full nuclear fuel cycle.
"Iran has achieved some 60 to 70 percent of the technology needed for a full fuel cycle," Salehi told the hardline Kayhan evening newspaper. He said Iran was many years away from producing enough nuclear fuel to feed even one atomic reactor.
"We need at least ten years to feed the Bushehr nuclear plant with the fuel," Salehi said. Once the protocol on returning spent fuel is signed, Russia will ship fuel to Iran to start up the Bushehr reactor. Spent fuel will be sent back to a storage facility in Siberia after roughly a decade of use.
Western diplomats in Moscow say that decade would enable Iran to acquire the necessary technology to make bombs. Russia says much longer would be required. An official from a nuclear fuel plant in Siberia was quoted as saying that up to 168 nuclear fuel units would be dispatched to Bushehr after the signing to start up the reactor. A further 43 would be shipped each year thereafter.
Signing of the document has been delayed repeatedly. Industry insiders say disagreement over technical matters and the row with the United States nearly prompted both sides to abandon the project this year. Rumyantsev told Tass delays were linked to "failure to fulfil certain contract obligations by some Russian and Iranian firms". He did not elaborate. -Reuters
