NUCLEAR: Haggling Over Cost of Storing Bushehr's Spent Fuel Stalls Project, Russia's Atomic Energy Chief Says

Head of Russia’s nuclear energy agency said building the Bushehr nuclear plant will be concluded by 2006, however, he added that negotiations are still going on about the price Iran will pay Russia for storing the plant’s nuclear waste. June 10, 2004 - “The principles” of the Russia-Iran contract on the return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia “has been decided at all levels,” but the two sides are still haggling over the price that Iran will pay to Russia for storing the spent fuel and the logistics of how to transport it back, head of Russia’s Federal atomic energy agency Alexander Rumyantsev said on Friday. “There is a chance that Iran's dossier could be closed during IAEA's autumn session,” Rumyantsev said. “Iran has opened up and has been cooperating with the agency,” he said. Russia has been pressing Iran to continue to cooperate with IAEA inspectors, which has been investigating charges that Iran was hiding a secret weapons program. Russia has suspended work on the Bushehr project since March 2003, and says it will not begin delivering fuel to the plant until the two sides sign a contract for the return of spent fuel to Russia. Rumyantsev said the 1,000 megawatt plant is now expected to go online in 2006, but the talks over the contract have dragged on for years, prompting speculation that Moscow was yielding to pressure from the US, which says the Iran could use the spent fuel rods to develop nuclear weapons. On a visit to Moscow in late June, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said the Bushehr nuclear plant was “no longer at the center of international concern.” Last week in meetings inTehran with the head of Russia’s security council, the Islamic government's top officials urged Russia to end its suspension of work at the plant.