Russian Deal Will Send Nuclear Fuel to Iran Soon

Russia and Iran signed a long-awaited agreement yesterday which paves the way for the delivery within weeks of nuclear fuel to a regime which Washington claims is seeking an atomic bomb and sponsors terrorism.

It was signed at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant on the Gulf coast opposite Kuwait by the Iranian vice-president, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, and Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Russian atomic energy agency, which is responsible for building the plant.

The United States insists that Iran's atomic energy programme is a front for developing nuclear weapons and has openly clashed with President Vladimir Putin, who says he is satisfied that the programme is peaceful.

Iran has agreed to return the spent fuel to Russia after its use in the reactor. Moscow maintains that this, coupled with international inspection, will prevent the enriched uranium from being processed by Iran to extract plutonium for use in a weapons programme.

Mr Rumyantsev told AP: "In the next few weeks many Russian technicians will arrive in Bushehr to speed up the assembly operation."

After touring the plant he said: "This storage house is ready to receive nuclear fuel."

Russian officials have said that the nuclear fuel is ready for delivery and may be in Iran in a matter of weeks, although a delivery date has not been set.

Mr Rumyantsev insisted that the delivery would not be immediate. Moscow hopes the plant will be operational by the middle of next year.

The agreement was signed on the eve of the International Atomic Energy Agency's board meeting in Vienna, which will discuss how to tackle Iran.

George Bush has made it clear that he is prepared to wait for the results of an initiative from France, Germany and Britain to persuade Iran to scrap enrichment plans in exchange for economic aid.

But Washington will ask for tougher measures, including perhaps referring the matter to the UN security council, if the European initiative fails.

On Friday Hassan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, told a French newspaper that the European countries were "incapable of keeping their promises".

The IAEA has put off publishing a report on the Iranian nuclear programme, perhaps fearing that it would irritate Tehran.

But evidence of Iran's nuclear ambitions is growing. Yesterday diplomats leaked details of an IAEA inquiry which has established that Iran was offered the knowledge needed to make a nuclear bomb by the rogue Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan as early as 1987.

Officials told the Washington Post that Iran bought centrifuge designs and a starter kit for uranium enrichment at a meeting with Dr Khan in Dubai.

Iran has insisted that it opted not to buy the remaining items needed to build a bomb, but officials said it might have bought them elsewhere. Tehran handed over the written documents it bought from Dr Khan to the IAEA, the diplomats said.

"The offer is the strongest indication to date that Iran had a nuclear weapons programme, but it doesn't prove it completely," a western diplomat told the Post.

Another told AP that the evidence, which suggested that Iran was working on acquiring a bomb as long ago as its war with Iraq, was not the "smoking gun" Washington is seeking to demonstrate the existence of Iran's continued programme.