Russia helping Iran to develop nuclear weapons: Greenpeace

afp ^ | 6/23/02

[Ranger]

Ecological organisation Greenpeace accused Russia on Friday of helping Iran to develop nuclear weapons by building Iran's Bushehr atomic power station.

The Russian branch of Greenpeace distributed at a press conference a report of Russia's atomic energy ministry which conceded that the Russo-Iranian accord on the plant's construction does not require the repatriation of the nuclear fuel.

"The question of the recycling of the nuclear fuel from Bushehr is not mentioned in the accord between the Russian and Iranian governments" on the construction of the plant, the report said.

Greenpeace member Vladimir Chuprov said the ministry had "practically admitted that Iran will not return to Russia the spent nuclear fuel from the power station," whose only use for Iran is "to equip itself with nuclear weapons".

But the atomic energy ministry, which confirmed the report's existence, strongly denied Greenpeace's accusations.

Ministry spokesman Nikolai Shingarev told AFP that Russia would only supply nuclear fuel to Iran on condition that it be returned to Russia after its use.

"Moscow is currently in negotiations with Tehran on this question. This purely technical issue will be settled before the power station comes into operation," the spokesman said.

The accord on Bushehr was signed long before Russia passed a law permitting the import of nuclear waste last year, which explains why it makes no mention of the return of the fuel, he pointed out.

In any case, "it is very difficult to make a nuclear weapon from the plutonium in this fuel," the ministry official added.

The United States and Israel fear that the Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation could enable Tehran to acquire the technology needed to build nuclear weapons, an accusation that Russia dismisses.

Iran has said the plant is being built only for civilian energy purposes, and allows regular inspections of Bushehr by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Iran ordered the power station in 1994 at a cost of nearly $800 million from Russia.

German group Siemens pulled out of the long-standing project at the request of the German government after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

Currently equipped with a single reactor, experts say Bushehr could in theory become operational as early as September 2003.

US President George W Bush raised Washington's concerns about Russian nuclear cooperation with Iran at the summit in Moscow last month between him and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

[alloysteel]

It is something of a stretch to assume all nuclear power generation plants are primarily, or even peripherally, used only to produce weapons-grade fissionables. Some small amount may indeed be produced, but it takes a laborious amount of expertise and tedious methods of concentrating the fissionable material, so much so that it may well be easier to simply steal somebody else's supply of plutonium. Greenpeace has a reflexive horror and superstitious dread of ALL things nuclear. Too many years of reading science-fiction tales, and not enough time in a physics classroom.

[Lazamataz]

Ecological organisation Greenpeace accused Russia on Friday of helping Iran to develop nuclear weapons

Greenpeace said it; ergo, it is not true.

[monday]

Greenpeace has no credibility. Reading this would be a waste of time.

[ChicagoRepublican]

So because Russia is helping other nations with the proliferation of nuclear armaments they get a rating of C from greenpeace while the US gets a rating of F-. (I'm talking about an old article where Greenpeace rated nations on their attempts to get rid of nuclear weapons.)

[GuillermoX]

If Russia is helping Iran build a nuke power plant for weapaons usage, this is something we would not have to worry about, as the Israelis would turn it into toast a la Iraq 1981.