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2 A new crisis in Russia-Iran
relations By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Moscow's decision to postpone the
completion of a 1,000-megawatt reactor in Bushehr,
Iran, has shocked Tehran and is bound to bring
Russia-Iran relations to a crisis point, this at a
time when neither country can afford to have such
a negative impact on their geostrategic
considerations.
On August 15, President
Mahmud Ahmadinejad is due in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan,
to attend (as an observer) a summit of the
Shanghai Cooperation
Organization (SCO), the regional security
organization launched by Russia and China and
encompassing the Central Asian states. Iran can
potentially contribute to the SCO's
security-related priorities and, certainly, to its
anti-terrorism center.
Yet compared with
last year when there were lively discussions,
particularly in the Russian press, of Iran's
inclusion as a member of SCO, not only is there no
such talk this year but, worse, the crisis over
Bushehr threatens the wellspring of the entire
Iran-Russia relationship.
As usual, the
Kremlin has veiled its "playing politics with
Bushehr" by hiding behind its private contractors
involved with the Bushehr project, who insist
their announcement that Bushehr will not go
operational this autumn as planned and will at the
earliest the following autumn, is purely financial
in nature.
According to Grigory Noginsky,
chairman of the Federation Council Commission for
Nuclear Energy, payments made by Iran for the
construction of the plant "were in fact stopped in
the beginning of the year. Even if Iran fully
resumes payments today, there is such a notion as
inertia, and I think that the launch will be
possible in reality no earlier than in
summer-autumn 2008."
This is nonsense, the
Iranians insist, and they have threatened to go
public by publishing all the records of Iran's
regular payments to the Russian nuclear
subcontractors. Noginsky's announcement coincided
with a high-level Iranian delegation heading to
Moscow to discuss the matter, making it look like
a peremptory move on Russia's part to assure those
talks are futile.
Thus the fate of the
US$1 billion nuclear project has been cast under a
thick cloud of uncertainty. "Confidence in the
project has been undermined," Irina Yesipova, the
spokeswoman for Atomstroiexport, which is building
the Bushehr plant, told Interfax news agency.
As a result, confidence in Russia-Iran
relations has been seriously undermined. From
Iran's vantage point, there is no doubt that
Moscow has appeased Washington, whose officials
have openly asked Russia not to complete Bushehr.
This year, Russia also reneged on its
contractual obligation to deliver nuclear fuel to
Iran. Iran has a separate agreement with Moscow on
nuclear fuel, which should have been respected.
According to Ahmad Gharib, a former official of
Iran's Atomic Energy Organization in charge of
nuclear fuel, Iran can now complain against Russia
for "failure to fulfill its contractual
obligations". Gharib and a number of other Iranian
current and/or former officials have criticized
Tehran's "lack of political will" with respect to
Russia's constant manipulation of its nuclear
partnership with Iran for the sake of its
relations with the US.
In a press
interview on Wednesday, Ali Larijani, Iran's chief
nuclear negotiator, once again accused the US of
trying to deprive Iran of "nuclear technology and
know-how". Certainly, Russia's willingness to
accommodate the White House's objectives against
Iran go a long mile in that direction. Gharib has
rightly noted that "the operationalization of
Bushehr greatly facilitates [the fulfillment] of
Iran's nuclear rights and the procurement of
peaceful nuclear technology".
The fact
that Bushehr is now more than seven years behind
schedule translates into serious worries about the
future of Iran's power industry. Iran is in dire
need of nuclear-generated electricity and the
crisis over Bushehr directly translates into a
crisis of economic planning in Iran. [1] The
Russian leadership must realize the extent of
damage to Iran, both short-term and long-term,
caused by their toying with Bushehr for the sake
of their US policy.
"Iran expects its
friends to prevent the denial of Iran's legitimate
rights," Iran's former president Ayatollah Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has complained, and more
bitter reactions on the part of other Iranian
politicians have been reflected in the Iranian
press. A growing number of parliamentarians openly
use the word "betrayal" to describe the Kremlin's
behavior. The Kremlin's other decision, to offer
cooperation with the US in monitoring Iran's
missile program through the giant radar stationed
in Azerbaijan, has also met criticism by Iranian
politicians.
At the same time, there are
other points of tension between Russia and Iran,
such as their competition for the European energy
market. Russia has bitterly complained against the
recent Iran-Turkmenistan-Turkey gas deal, which
undermines Russia's energy strategy toward Europe,
and the Iranian media have made
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