Russia is pulling out its experts from the Iranian
nuclear reactor site they were helping build, U.S. and European government
representatives said Tuesday.
The move reflected a growing rift between Tehran
and
Moscow that could lead to harsher U.N. sanctions on the
Islamic republic for its refusal to stop uranium enrichment.
The representatives - a European diplomat and a U.S. official - said a
large number of Russian technicians, engineers and other specialists were
flown back to Moscow within the last week, at about
the same time senior Russian and Iranian officials tried, but failed, to
resolve financial differences over the Bushehr nuclear reactor.
"A good number of them have left recently," said the U.S. official, of
the approximately 2,000 Russian workers on the site of the nearly
completed reactor outside the southern city of Bushehr.
The European diplomat, who is accredited to the
Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, said a
large number had left as recently as last week, during abortive talks in
Moscow between Russian Security Council head Igor
Ivanov and Ali Hosseini Tash, Iran's deputy
Security Council chief.
Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Rosatom, Russia's Federal Nuclear Power
Agency, confirmed the number of Russian workers at the Bushehr plant had
recently dwindled because of what he said were Iranian payment delays. He
wouldn't say how many had left.
The Russian departures are publicly linked to a financial row between
Moscow and Tehran - but have a strong
political component, linked to international efforts to persuade
Tehran to freeze activities linked to uranium enrichment,
which can produce both nuclear fuel and the fissile material for nuclear
warheads.
Although the reactor is 95% completed, Russia said
this month that further work would be delayed because Iran
had failed to make monthly payments since January. It said the delay could
cause "irreversible" damage to the project.
Because of the delay, Russia also indefinitely put
off delivery of enriched uranium fuel it had promised to provide
Iran by this month.
Iran, which denies falling behind in payments, was
furious, convinced Russia - which has long blunted a
U.S.-led push for harsh U.N. Security Council sanctions against
Tehran - was now using the claim of financial arrears as a
pretext to increase pressure for it to heed the council.
