- MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's
top nuclear exporter said on Friday it would seek fresh contracts with
Iran, brushing aside U.S. fears that the reactors could be used to develop
nuclear weapons.
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- Washington has branded Iran part of an "axis of
evil" for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction and questions
why the oil-rich country needs nuclear power. It says Tehran will use Russian
know-how to develop a nuclear arms programme.
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- But Viktor Kozlov, head of Atomstroyexport, said Washington's
fears were groundless and promised to bid for more Iranian deals along
with other states.
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- "Iran has a (long-term) programme which includes
six reactors. We have only concluded a contract for one bloc but we also
have an agreement for further cooperation," Kozlov told Reuters in
an interview.
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- Islamic Iran is a bitter foe of the United States and
U.S. officials have said that Russia's nuclear dealings with Iran are the
biggest single thorn in increasingly warm relations between Washington
and Moscow.
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- But Kozlov said the $800 million Bushehr light-water
reactor in southwest Iran, completed by Russian scientists and due to open
next year, could serve only civilian purposes.
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- "These are just assumptions by the man on the street,
for whom a nuclear plant is the same as a nuclear bomb," he said.
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- "This is purely political. They see Iran as an enemy
which should not be allowed even to develop economically... We will be
training technicians, not nuclear physicists."
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- DIRTY BOMB?
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- But Russian analysts said Iran could turn spent fuel
rods into a "dirty" bomb to disperse radioactive material.
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- "Theoretically you could make a bomb out of these
rods but for arms-grade plutonium you need a different kind of reactor,"
defence analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said. "However, radiological weapons,
or "dirty bombs", can be built from such rods."
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- Kozlov said used fuel from Bushehr would be returned
to Russia for reprocessing -- a gesture designed to appease the United
States, which fears fuel from the plant could eventually be refined locally
into weapons-grade plutonium.
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- "There is such a deal," he said, giving no
further details.
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- Kozlov said that during 2002 some 50 monitoring teams
from the U.N. nuclear watchdog had visited Bushehr, a German plant begun
in the 1970s but frozen after the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
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- "Russia is convinced that the plants it builds in
neighbouring countries are used only for civilian purposes," he said.
"You shouldn't think Russian leaders are stupid."
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- The Russian nuclear sector, heavily subsidised during
the Cold War, was effectively crippled by the 1986 Chernobyl reactor explosion
and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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- Exports of nuclear technology and expertise are essential
to keeping the sector afloat. The Bushehr contract alone will involve some
20,000 people, 19,000 of them in Russia.
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- "We need to focus on markets where demand for energy
is high, and that is mainly developing countries at the moment, including
Iran, India and China," Kozlov said.
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- Iran is key, footing a large part of the Bushehr bill
in cash. Russia's other main clients, China and India, pay most of their
bills in kind.
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