THE RUSSIAN-IRANIAN NUCLEAR COOPERATION

Number 05 ● 05 November 2006

This review seeks to explore the reasons underlying Russia's somewhat moderate position towards the Iranian nuclear program. The international community has repeatedly demanded that Iran deliver its nuclear file to the UN Security Council and that the Council take strict sanctions against Iran. Yet with each such attempt, Russia expresses its intention to block a resolution in this regard. Despite Russia's recent agreement to discuss the Iranian nuclear file in the Security Council, under current circumstances it is unlikely that Moscow will support strong sanctions against its Iranian ally.

Russia views the relations with Iran as an important factor in its influence over the Middle East. Arms sales, nuclear technologies and services, as well as oil and gas production, had always been the main sources of Russian national income. With the fall of the USSR, Russia has become dependant on the revival of these industries through export to developing countries. In an attempt to save its own nuclear industry from collapse while expanding its sources of income, Russia was specifically interested in developing nuclear cooperation with Iran.

In conjunction with the demise of the USSR, Iranian leaders, seeking a way out of Iran's deep economic isolation, decided to establish wide economic, military and nuclear cooperation with Russia.

As a result of the Russian-Iranian rapprochement and the development of full-scale cooperation that pursued, Russian exports of raw materials and industrial equipments to Iran have increased significantly. In 1992, these exports constituted $249 million, while in 2004 Russian exports to Iran reached approximately $1.3 billion. During the period of 1992-2003, Russia exported to Iran a huge quantity of conventional weapons, worth at least $4 billion and, according to some estimates, exceeding $7-8 billion. Thus, Iran became the biggest importer of Russian arms in the Middle East.

Nuclear cooperation became one of the leading channels of Russian-Iranian relations during the last decade. On August 17, 1992, a Russian-Iranian agreement was signed, covering "the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes". On January 8, 1995 under the aforementioned agreement, negotiators concluded a deal worth $800 million, to build a 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran. Since then, the number of Russian specialists employed in Bushehr has more than tripled, from 1,000 to 3,500 persons.

Concerned about Iran's anti-Western policy and the threat that Iran might acquire nuclear capabilities, the U.S. government has repeatedly confronted Russia about the "leakage" of missile and nuclear technologies from Russia demanding that Moscow cut all nuclear ties with Iran. Consequently, Russia has been forced to make some concessions to the U.S., but ultimately refused to suspend the construction of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr. Russia has promised to limit its nuclear cooperation with Iran to the construction of the nuclear power plant and the training of its personnel - endeavors that Russia promptly began to implement already in January of 1996. Still, the U.S. reiterated that these actions, even of a limited scope, serve to assist the build-up of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

To this day, the Americans failed in convincing Russia to abandon its plans; yet they have certainly managed to delay the project's implementation. Ongoing pressure on the part of the U.S. has prevented Russia from successfully beginning to operate the nuclear plant. By intercepting shipments of nuclear fuel from Russia to Iran in 2004 and 2005, the U.S. also prevented Russia from providing Iran with the fuel necessary to operate its nuclear plant. For these reasons, it appears that the American offensive policy against the Russian-Iranian nuclear cooperation has turned out to be to some extent productive.

A principal difference in relation to the Iranian nuclear program exists between the positions of Russia, on one hand, and the rest of Europe and, most profoundly, the U.S. on the other hand. As opposed to the Americans and Europeans, who consider the UN Security Council empowered to deal with Iran's nuclear plans, Russia considers the IAEA to be the only authority with the mandate to address the issue. Hence, Russia always opposed initiatives to address the Iranian nuclear program in the Security Council, even after the victory of ultra-conservatives in Iran and their resolution to resume uranium enrichment.

International experts are concerned that Russia may now engage in a deal, which would provide Iran with an opportunity to continue its research on nuclear enrichment. This is viewed as a "red line" which, once crossed, would almost certainly allow Iran to develop nuclear capabilities and nuclear weapons. Yet while the U.S. and European countries demand that Iran suspend all nuclear activities, Russia does not oppose Iran's uranium-conversion program and research that will allow nuclear-enrichment. Moreover, in 2005, Russia offered Iran to carry out its nuclear enrichment on Russian soil - an offer to which Iran has not yet responded positively.

Yet the reasons for Russia's divergence from the Western majority on the Iranian nuclear issue span beyond the highly profitable Russian-Iranian cooperation in this regard. A long-term strategic alliance is developing between the two states, aimed at affecting the global balance of power. Coinciding mutual interests and further rapprochement of these countries took place mainly on the basis of a newly created geopolitical situation in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

One manifestation of this new situation was the formation of the Shanghai Five, a multilateral forum founded by China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in April 1996 and later joined by Uzbekistan. On the basis of this forum, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) was established on June 15, 2001 with the intention of strengthening mutual trust and good-neighborly relations among member states and promoting their effective cooperation in political affairs, economy and trade, scientific-technical, cultural, and educational spheres as well as in energy, transportation, tourism, and environmental protection fields. Iran's participation as an observer in the SCO may be considered an additional attempt to constitute a Russian-Iranian-Chinese geopolitical alliance to prevent U.S. penetration to Central Asia. In that respect, it seems that the build-up of Iranian nuclear and military capabilities not only does not contradict Russian interests, but, contrary to the statements of some Russian experts, in fact assists Russia in solving many of its foreign policy and economic problems.

In Conclusion, Russia has strong interests to develop its economic, military, and nuclear cooperation with Iran. Despite U.S. demands to cut nuclear and military ties with the Islamic Republic, it seems doubtful that Russia will renounce its profitable cooperation with Iran■

* Nugzar Ter-Oganov is a fellow researcher at the Center for Iranian Studies.

Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 61390, Tel Aviv P.O.B. 39040, Israel

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Iran Pulse 5 ● November 5, 2006 © All rights reserved