US: The Bush administration, concerned about Iran's announced plans to develop its own nuclear fuel, will accelerate talks with Russia meant to keep Tehran from achieving full nuclear capability, US officials said yesterday.
The administration believes Tehran's public announcement this month about its nuclear fuel activities has made the Iranian nuclear problem far more difficult to resolve and that the onus is on Moscow, which has provided critical nuclear assistance to Tehran, to find a solution, the officials said.
Under-secretary of State Mr John Bolton, the administration's top arms control and non-proliferation official, is expected to leave Washington on Sunday for talks with senior Russian officials in Moscow.
"A lot of the basis for the Russian argument that Iran's nuclear programme is not a problem has now disappeared and we need to talk to them about that and to think about how to deal with Iran in the post-Saddam period," one US official said.
Mr Bolton's Moscow trip was scheduled after Iran's atomic energy official, Gholamreza Aqazadeh, said on February 10th that the country had started an ambitious nuclear energy programme and was poised to begin processing uranium.
One day earlier, President Mohammad Khatami said Iran had uranium ore reserves and had begun mining operations in the Savand area. Iran, a signatory to nuclear non-proliferation pacts, insists its programme is purely peaceful. - (Reuters)