U.S.: Plans for Russian Nuclear Plant in Iran May Stymie Effort To Curb Tehran Program
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

UNITED NATIONS — While European diplomats proposed a new sanctions package yesterday aimed at preventing international assistance to Iran’s nuclear program, they said Russia should be allowed to finish building a plutonium plant at Bushehr, Iran.
American critics said that though Bushehr has been presented as a project that will produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, the exemption would allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.
The European package was circulated to members of the U.N. Security Council as a draft resolution on Tuesday night, and parts of it met with opposition in Washington, Beijing, and Moscow, diplomats at Turtle Bay said yesterday.
The Chinese and the Russians think the proposed resolution “is too tough, and the Americans think it’s not tough enough,” a Chinese official who requested anonymity told The New York Sun.
“We will make some changes to the European text,” a spokesman for the American mission to the United Nations, Richard Grenell, said.
France, Britain, and Germany presented the proposal, which would enact a resolution under Article 41 of the U.N. charter, the French ambassador to the United Nations, Jean-Marc de la Sabliere, said. The article makes punitive measures that do not include military means mandatory for all U.N. members.
“All states shall prevent the sale and supply to Iran of items and technologies which contribute to its nuclear and missiles program,” Mr. de la Sabliere quoted from the text. Also under the proposal, “persons that engage in this program shall be banned from travel,” and “funds and assets” of anyone involved in Iran’s nuclear program “shall be frozen.”
But Russia would be allowed to complete its 11-year Iranian nuclear project. “We have always said that there will be an exemption for Bushehr,” Mr. de la Sabliere said.
The Bushehr reactor “has nothing to do with the current issues on the Iranian file,” a senior Russian diplomat at the United Nations, Konstantin Dolgov, said. The plant is being built “in full respect of our obligations” under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, he added.
The European effort to impose punitive measures against Tehran began in earnest on October 6, when negotiators determined that Iran had not suspended its uranium enrichment program, as the U.N. Security Council had required. The Bushehr plant is plutonium-based and therefore not strictly related to Iran’s enrichment program.
Nevertheless, critics say it is part of a larger drive to turn Iran into a nuclear military power. Russia uses Bushehr as a “showpiece” behind which Iran can continue building its illicit program, a Washington-based Iran observer at the American Foreign Policy Council, Ilan Berman, told the Sun.
“It’s not just that they are helping a strategic partner,” Mr. Berman said. The Bushehr project is a “showroom inside Iran in which the Russians present their wares” to their other potential nuclear clients.
While Russia is concerned about anti-Russian sentiment in Muslim-majority regions in and around its borders, Tehran so far has refrained from stirring and aiding any Muslim rebellion, Mr. Berman said. This could change, however, if Russia allows the U.N. Security Council to impose tough punitive measures against Iran, he added.