SAINT PETERSBURG, May 25: US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Saturday his government remained concerned that Russian support for Iranian civil nuclear projects could be seen as helping Iran towards nuclear weapons technology.

“There is a disagreement between us and the Russians about the nature of some of their activities,” Powell told a briefing here following the summit between Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush.

“We believe that some of the activities that they’re participating in can be seen as helping Iran in the direction of (nuclear weapons) proliferation,” he said.

Putin and Bush, who signed a landmark nuclear disarmament treaty at their Kremlin summit Friday, remained at odds over the issue this weekend.

Washington is concerned at construction of a Russian nuclear power station at Boushehr in southern Iran.

“Both nations are agreed that we don’t want to contribute to proliferation of nuclear weapons technology, and that includes nuclear weapons technology to Iran,” Powell stressed.

Both sides were committed to the proposition that “this would not be a good thing for any one of them to be involved in.”

“They say that they are as sensitive to this issue as we are,” Powell explained: “They are closer to Iran than we are, and therefore, that’s why they are more sensitive, and that their activities do not assist Iran in that direction.”

“We disagree with that, and the groups that have been set up, plus our continuing bilateral dialogue that has been going on for quite a while, will continue to explore this,” the secretary of state added.

“The good news is that we have had candid discussions about this, and I hope we will be able to solve this going forward just as we have solved some of the other difficult issues that we have faced over the past year,” Powell stressed.

In Moscow on Friday Putin defended his country’s nuclear cooperation with Iran and dismissed US fears, saying cooperation with Iran would not undermine the non-proliferation process and was purely economic in nature.

A US official said Putin had assured Bush that Moscow would do nothing to allow Iran to develop a nuclear capability.

Powell was also asked at his briefing for the US assessment of how much nuclear material remained unsecured in Russia.

“I can’t tell you how much is accounted for, if any. I just don’t have that data,” he said.

Referring to a joint commission set up to deal with the problem, Powell said: “We want to have a broader dialogue with them to get a better understanding of what they have done over the years, what they have produced over the years.

“How can we be more effective in capturing that material, recycling it to be used as fuel or for other purposes or getting it under solid accountability so that the whole world can be more comfortable with the knowledge that it is under solid accountability.”—AFP