Posted on 12/12/2006 2:04:54 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
International consensus on sanctions against Iran remains elusive, but Russia insisted Monday it would deepen economic ties, including nuclear cooperation, with Tehran.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday the new draft of a U.N. Security Council resolution may involve sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, but nevertheless, it would not affect a $1-billion Russian project to build a nuclear reactor for Iran at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf.
"The new draft [resolution] limits supplies for uranium enrichment, fuel reprocessing, and technology transfer to Iran," but there was "no question of any restrictions on this project," Lavrov said in televised remarks here.
An earlier draft by Britain, France and Germany envisaged possible sanctions against Iran for its refusal to halt uranium enrichment, including a ban on missile and nuclear technologies sales, a freeze on some bank accounts, and visa restrictions on Iranian nuclear officials. The draft did not seek to ban the Bushehr reactor, but would have restricted fuel supplies to the plant.
Russia and China found the draft far too strong, however, and the European nations drafted new, weaker proposals, with no provisions concerning the Bushehr project.
Sergei Kiriyenko, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency (Rosatom), traveled to Tehran this week to reinforce Moscow's determination to develop nuclear ties with Iran, despite Western concerns.
"Russia sees no political obstacles to launching the Bushehr nuclear power plant as scheduled," Kiriyenko said. "Russia will complete the nuclear power plant as fast as it is technically possible."
He said the plant would go onstream by the end of 2007. It was originally due to reach that stage this year.
Kiriyenko, who held talks with Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, reiterated Russia's stance that Iran has the right to develop civilian nuclear energy.
The U.S. and its European allies suspect that Tehran's nuclear program provides a cover for an effort to develop nuclear weapons. Iran denies the charge.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted as telling the Russian visitor that Iran remained resolved to complete the full nuclear fuel cycle.
But he added that Iran had not ruled out an earlier Russian proposal to establish a joint uranium enrichment venture -- a move Moscow offered in a bid to defuse the international crisis over Iran's program.
Russia has been keen to present itself as a mediator in the dispute between Iran and the West, although Iran's refusal to suspend domestic uranium enrichment has held up any progress on the Russian joint venture proposal.
Kiriyenko's trip to Tehran coincided with the opening of a controversial conference there questioning the Holocaust, an event attended by Mottaki, among others.
In an apparent bid to defuse criticism of the decision to visit Iran at such a time, Russia's state-run RTR television channel broadcast a report Monday critical of the Holocaust conference, and featuring interviews with Holocaust survivors now living in Israel.
Apart from the controversial civilian nuclear cooperation, Russia maintains significant economic and energy interests in Iran.
Russian Deputy Industry and Energy Minister Ivan Matyorov, also visiting the Islamic republic, spoke in Tehran Monday about the possibility of cooperating in developing new oil deposits.
Russian gas giant Gazprom is already developing what is believed to be the world's largest gas field, the offshore South Pars field.
To be developed in up to 30 phases over 25 years, South Pars is estimated to contain around seven percent of the world's proven reserves.
Matyorov said Iranians viewed Gazprom as a "world leader" and hoped to cooperate with the Russian entity in third countries too, including Venezuela and Bolivia.
In other reports:
Report: Russia to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran next March
By The Associated Press
Quote:
MOSCOW - Russia in March will start delivering nuclear fuel for the plant it is building in Iran, the head of a state company in charge of the project said Monday, according to Russian news reports.
Atomstroexport's head Sergei Shmatko said during a trip to Tehran that he and Iranian officials had discussed financial problems related to the completion of the nuclear plant in Iran's southern port of Bushehr, the ITAR-Tass, Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.
Shmatko said his company would start preparations in January for nuclear fuel deliveries to Bushehr, and begin actual shipments in March, six months ahead of the physical launch of the Bushehr nuclear reactor..
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/800133.html
You and I are seeing Gog and Magog materialize right in front of our eyes Joe. Every American should be armed and always have 30 days food and clean water on hand. The tough time is coming, Americans are going to have to learn the meaning of self-sacrifice for the better good of the country. Too bad so few of us understand so we could act BEFORE it comes to this.
Putin to old school Soviet's "We give Iran the tools to build nukes, they finish the job Kruschiev wanted to complete........NUKE AMERICA!"
"We get paid by Iran for the technology. They get annihalated! America gets taken down! The Soviet Union wins twice!
You hit the nail right on the head!
How about "Any use of nuclear weapons by North Korea or Iran on the US is considered a strike by the Commonwealth of Independent States and other Soviet satellites, and the Peoples Republic of China, and retaliatation will be swift and certain.
Ah, yes.
Our "friends", the Russians.
Can you live on a radioactive asteroid?
I won't.
Ah, yes.
Our "friends", the Russians.
______________
I think they've been making it pretty clear for a while now whose side they're on.
Playing the role of Adolf Hitler in this centuries performance I give you Ahmadinejad, Mussolini will be played by Vladamir Putin, and in a tour de force performance we have Alec Baldwin as Emperor Hirohito.
Enjoy the show folks!
I saw this coming as soon as Bush criticized Putin publicly on human rights. I knew he would drive Russia into the arms of IslamoFascists. The criticism didn't change human rights in Russia one iota, but it cost us an ally, or at very least a non-aligned country.
The answer is quite simple actually. Tell Russia they will be nuked when Iran uses them! Russia feels they can do this with no response. I'm waiting for Bush to go Harry Truman. And how about Reagan? God, do I miss those days. I only hope people realize Duncan Hunter is in the race for '08 because I would just love him to take on these issues. He DOES have a Harry Truman, Reagan in him.
Will you live in slavery? I won't.
It seems like most of our strategies are based on what to do AFTER we get nuked.
Pathetics. Nobody is going to enslave you.
Arabs try to compel to respect you their culture, and you try to compel to respect arabs the democracy.
Simply you have forgotten that " to compel to respect " is impossible, each should merit the respect.
You are obviously ignorant of the stated goals of Islam. I will never live under Islamic law, I would much prefer to turn Mecca into a glowing slag heap and live in a cave.
I see moslems every day, I work with them.
I am Russians orthodox Christian from Kazakhstan.
Believe me radicalism has no relation to religion.
Radicalism - it more likely a dissatisfaction with a life.
There is 60 percent of the population are moslems and 30 procenters are orthodox Christians in Kazakhstan.
But we have a wide experience of existence together.
Well-being and culture, culture and well-being - here a basis of tolerance.
The well-to-do and cultural person will not go to make acts of terrorism.
But poor, hungry and not knowing anything except weapon easily gives in on provocation of radicals.
Compel us to respect their culture? I don't know where to start with that one. Is that what they're doing placing American and Israeli flags as doormats to entrances to their childrens classrooms?
Their very cultured Al Jazeera network?
The culture of mass brainwashing of their populations?
The culture of their Nazi like rallies chanting death to America?
Help me out here.
I've spoken, that you look at the Islam through a prism of the Middle East.
I've spoken, that you look at the Islam through a prism of the Middle East.
_____
They're the ones who want to kill me. That's who I'm concerned with, I'm funny that way.
Islam, as a percentage and as a whole number has more lunatics than any other religion than-well...muslims who brought on the crusades.
When I see all of these Nazi-like rallies, I want to do to them what we should have done to the Nazi's a lot sooner.
When someone like Ahmadinejad says he will wipe out Israel and nuke America, I choose to believe him. If I do believe him, I would like to kill him before he kills me.
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