March 16, 2007	Friday	Safar 26, 1428

MOSCOW: Fears of a Western military strike on Iran and frustrations in talks with the country’s leadership have halted Russia’s plans to complete a nuclear power plant there, analysts said.

Moscow infuriated Tehran and stunned observers this week by cancelling its March deadline to deliver nuclear fuel for the one-billion-dollar plant it is constructing near the Iranian city of Bushehr.

Each side blames the other for the latest breakdown in plans to open the plant — at one time scheduled for 2001, most recently scheduled for this fall.

Russia says Tehran has cut off the funds, while Tehran hints that Moscow has caved to US pressure.

Behind the spat, analysts said, is Russia’s fear of delivering nuclear materials to the Islamic republic on what may be the eve of a strike by Israel or the United States.

“The delay in the project is a very clear sign that Russia is preparing to evacuate its specialists from the site in view of an air attack by the United States or Israel,” said Radzhab Safarov, head of the Moscow-based Centre for Contemporary Iranian Studies.

Russian nuclear workers have already begun abandoning Bushehr, a Russian nuclear agency official told news agency RIA Novosti on Tuesday, though he said financial difficulties were to blame.

Analyst Vladimir Yevseyev at the Institute of the World Economy and International Relations said the rationale was a fig leaf.

In view of a possible attack, “I think Russia will use any means to delay the plant’s launch, and the money issue is a very good one,” he told in an interview.

“Once the nuclear fuel is delivered, there’s no turning back.” Washington has long pressed Moscow not to complete the Bushehr station, fearing Iran’s nuclear energy programme could provide cover for nuclear weapons development, and critics claimed Moscow was putting financial interests above security concerns.

Moscow insisted the plant would not help Iran develop weapons and that all nuclear fuel it provided would be returned to Russia for disposal.

Chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani sought to play on Russia’s economic interests on Wednesday, warning that “any delay in putting the Bushehr plant online will harm Russia’s future trade interests,” the Mehr news agency reported.

But in the years of delays following Bushehr’s initially planned launch in 2001, “Russia’s economic interests in the project have been dropping sharply” anyway, Yevseyev said.

Even considering potential future profits from fuelling the plant, “the figures are fairly small compared to the Russian budget.”

Meanwhile, Washington’s cries of alarm over Bushehr have quieted to whispers, leading analysts to suspect it had cut a deal with Moscow.

US Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell, speaking here on Wednesday after a meeting with top Russian nuclear official Sergei Kiriyenko, dodged a pair of questions on US concerns over Bushehr, saying: “Russia’s interests in this are very similar to the US, and they’re acting accordingly.”

Analysts say that Moscow has likely agreed to hold up Bushehr in exchange for Washington walking more softly in the former Soviet world and offering other concessions.

“I believe the United States has offered to pay more attention to Russia’s energy interests in the entire world,” Safarov said.

“The Americans can also give the green light to Russia’s entry to the World Trade Organisation” by leaning on countries still withholding their approval, he said.

Analysts also said it was no accident Russia stopped Bushehr in its tracks as the five permanent UN Security Council members — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- and Germany were finishing discussions on a new resolution imposing harsher sanctions on Iran for failing to suspend uranium enrichment.

“It’s clearly in Russia’s interests to take into account the interests of its Iranian partners, but Russia has made clear it’s not going to enter any alliances against the West,” said Yevgeny Satanovsky, head of the Institute for Middle Eastern Studies.—AFP