Russia says Iran crisis must be solved in watchdog framework

Russia today said the Iranian nuclear crisis must be solved under the direction of the UN nuclear watchdog agency, and it called on Iran to co-operate more fully with the organisation.

“The search for a solution must follow the route of diplomacy, and our position is that the instrument for resolving this problem, as before, must remain the International Atomic Agency (IAEA), as we don’t have another international agency that has such authority and competence in the non-proliferation area,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak told a Moscow security conference.

“Our advice to our Iranian colleagues and friends is to complete work with the IAEA and to calmly continue its nuclear energy programme … and on this path we are ready to provide assistance to Iran,” Kislyak said.

Kislyak’s comments reflected Russia’s continued insistence that the Iran issue not be transferred to the UN Security Council, where the prospect of imposing sanctions looms. They came on a day when Russian officials seemed at pains to emphasise their continued differences with the United States on how to handle the nuclear crisis.

The US is pushing strongly for sanctions.

“One can speak of sanctions only after the appearance of concrete facts proving that Iran is not engaged exclusively in peaceful nuclear activities,” the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin as saying.

He also said that “force and sanctions alone cannot remove the world community’s concern over Iran’s nuclear program,” ITAR-Tass reported.

Nikolai Spassky, deputy head of the Kremlin Security Council, put it even more bluntly.

“There is no such issue (of sanctions) for us,” he was quoted as saying by the RIA-Novosti news agency. “We are not discussing it.”

Iran’s envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency said, meanwhile, that Tehran was prepared to co-operate.

“We have always been and will be prepared to remove any ambiguity about our nuclear activities and to prove that they are exclusively for peaceful purposes and will remain exclusively for peaceful purposes,” Ali Asghar Soltanieh said.

He warned that “any engagement by the UN Security Council would make the situation deteriorate".

“We advise all to let the IAEA do its job and we are determined to continue full cooperation with the IAEA,” Soltanieh said.

Russian officials have said they were awaiting ElBaradei’s April 28 report before deciding Moscow’s position on further steps to resolve the Iran crisis.

The United States and Britain have said that if Iran does not comply with the UN Security Council’s April 28 deadline to stop enrichment, they will seek a resolution that would make the demand compulsory.

On Thursday, Moscow rejected a U.S. call to end cooperation in constructing the Bushehr nuclear power plant in southern Iran.

Kamynin said the plant had no relation to Iran’s work in uranium enrichment.

“The adoption of a commitment on ending co-operation with this or that state in some sphere lies exclusively in the competence of the UN. Security Council,” he said in a statement. “Up to now, the Security Council has taken no decision on ending cooperation with Iran in nuclear energy.”

Every country “has the right to decide with whom and how it should cooperate,” Kamynin said, adding that the Bushehr project was “under the full control” of the UN nuclear watchdog – the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency.

US under-secretary of state Nicholas Burns said this week that the US had called on countries to end all nuclear cooperation with Iran, including work on the Bushehr plant. He also said that countries should stop all arms exports to Iran – Russia is supplying Iran with sophisticated air defence missiles.

Burns said such action would send a message to Tehran that its behaviour meant it would no longer be “business as usual.”

Spassky said Friday that “there are no circumstances that would obstruct fulfilment of our obligations in military-technical cooperation with Iran,” ITAR-Tass reported.

“Military-technical cooperation” is a euphemism for arms shipments.

“This goes for all the obligations we have made, including the commitment to provide Iran with Tor-M1 air-defence systems,” Spassky was quoted as saying.

The United States, which believes Iran is intending to make nuclear weapons, has been pushing for tough measures because of Iran’s refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment programme.