Russia Makes First Fuel Shipment to Iran Nuclear Plant

MOSCOW — Russia has made its first shipment of nuclear fuel to an Iranian nuclear power plant at the center of the international tensions over Tehran's atomic program, the Foreign Ministry said yesterday.

America and Russia said the delivery gave Iran another reason to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but an official in Tehran said it would not.

America has been unhappy about Russia helping Iran build the Bushehr nuclear plant. But President Bush has supported Russia in providing uranium fuel to Iran as long as Moscow retrieves the used reactor fuel for reprocessing, as stipulated in an agreement between Russia and Iran.

"If that's the case — if the Russians are willing to do that, which I support — then the Iranians do not need know how to enrich," Mr. Bush said in Fredericksburg, Va. "If the Iranians accept that uranium for civilian nuclear power, then there's no need for them to learn how to enrich."

Iran contends the plant is strictly for civilian purposes, but critics say it could be used to advance efforts to build nuclear weapons.

The construction of the Bushehr plant has been frequently delayed. Officials said the delays were due to payment disputes, but many observers suggested Russia also was unhappy with Iran's resistance to international pressure to make its nuclear program more open and to assure the international community that it was not developing nuclear arms.

Russia announced last week that its construction disputes with Iran had been resolved and said fuel deliveries would begin about a half year before Bushehr was expected to go into service. "All fuel that will be delivered will be under the control and guarantees of the International Atomic Energy Agency for the whole time it stays on Iranian territory," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "Moreover, the Iranian side gave additional written guarantees that the fuel will be used only for the Bushehr nuclear power plant."

Iran confirmed that it had received the shipment, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported. "The first nuclear fuel shipment for the Bushehr atomic power plant arrived in Iran Monday," IRNA quoted Vice President Gholam Reza Aghazadeh of Iran as saying.

Meanwhile, President Putin assured his political party yesterday that Russia's age of Putin is far from over, pledging to accept an offer of the prime minister's post when he leaves the presidency next year.

Mr. Putin, whose power still seems ascendant, finally settled on one of his many post-presidential political options, which had ranged from altering the Russian constitution so he could run again to outright retirement.

Mr. Putin has pledged to accept a job that is, at least on paper, a demotion — perhaps confident of the power conferred by his enormous popularity and by the loyalty of the fellow KGB veterans he placed in many of the Kremlin's most important jobs.

Mr. Putin, 55, presented his decision in a speech to leaders of the United Russia party, shortly before they voted to nominate the president's longtime protégé, First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (mehd-VEH'- dyev), as their candidate in the March 2 presidential contest. With the support of Mr. Putin and the Kremlin's tight control over the nation's press and political landscape, Mr. Medvedev appears certain to win.