Russia has brought home its contingent of technicians and
engineers working on Iran's unfinished nuclear reactor plant at
Bushehr as mounting international pressure piles up on Tehran,
Austria Press Agency (APA) reported Tuesday.
The move would facilitate the enforcing of harsher UN sanctions
against Iran, which further refused to halt uranium enrichment last
month, the report said.
Many Russian experts had departed for Moscow last week, a move
thought likely to have been triggered by financial disputes between
Russia and Iran.
Sergei Novikov, spokesman for Russia's federal nuclear power
agency Rosatom, confirmed the reason had been Iranian payment
delays.
Russia also denied a report by The New York Times that
Moscow had threatened to withhold fuel for the Bushehr power plant
should Iran still stonewall Security Council demands to suspend its
uranium enrichment program.
The New York Times, citing unnamed European, American
and Iranian officials, had cited an ultimatum given last week by
Igor Ivanov, head of the Russian National Security Council, to Ali
Hosseini Tash, Iran's deputy chief nuclear negotiator.
"I can tell you that the report is not accurate, that there has
been no Russian ultimatum to Iran of any kind," Russian Ambassador
to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, told reporters.
"We continue to regard the Bushehr project as being an issue
outside the scope of Resolution 1737, and of that of the draft
resolution currently being worked on in New York. The Bushehr
project is a separate economic project."
The UN Security Council will hold formal consultations today on
a draft resolution prepared by Britain, China, France, Russia, the
United States and Germany as to stronger sanctions against
Iran.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to address the
15-member Security Council to defend his country's nuclear
ambitions on the day of the vote.
(Xinhua News Agency March 21, 2007)
