MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Pyotr Goncharov) – Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni’s visit to Moscow may not be the easiest for the Russian side because of Iran.
The sides are going to discuss the non-proliferation of sensitive technologies in association with the Iranian nuclear program, and Arab-Israeli settlement in the Middle East. But if contradictions between the Israelis and the Arabs have become commonplace, the situation with the Iranian nuclear program underwent cardinal changes in the end of the past year and not in Israel’s favor. Israel is accusing Russia of engineering this change. What’s the gist of the problem?
It revealed itself last December. In general, many events linked to the Iranian nuclear program took place in that month. To begin with, U.S. secret services published a report on the Iranian nuclear program, which caused controversial responses by all interested parties – Iran, Israel, Russia and the United States. The report said that Iran had discontinued its military nuclear program in 2003.
In Israel’s opinion, the publication of the report was a disservice on behalf of the U.S. secret services. Tehran instantly used the opportunity to confirm its right to uranium enrichment because the closure had been proved. It even sent a letter to the UN Secretary General, insisting that the UN Security Council stop discussing its nuclear file and return it to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Israel believes that the report could facilitate Moscow’s decision to supply Russian nuclear fuel to the Iranian nuclear station in Bushehr.
Indeed, in mid-December Russia sent the first, and two weeks later, the second consignment of low-enriched uranium to the station. This was all but a shock and not only to Israel. American experts are analyzing scenarios where a year after the station’s commissioning, Iran will have highly-enriched plutonium – almost good enough to produce up to 20 nuclear charges.
Moscow’s opinion on the much-publicized report is diametrically opposite. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia has never had any information on the presence of a military component in the Iranian nuclear program. In other words, Moscow does not even agree that Iran stopped it in 2003 – it had never been launched.
Lavrov has again saved Tehran from a lot of trouble. Iranian diplomacy is a special art form, but it is not flawless. Each time Tehran quotes the report’s conclusions about the closure of its military program in 2003, it thereby confirms that it opened it some time. In this context, Tehran’s arguments that it cannot develop the program because of Islam and the behests of Iranian religious leader Khomeini appear doubtful.
Moscow certainly had the right to supply the fuel. Even George W. Bush does not deny this, but there is one “but” – the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which does not favor the presumption of innocence. In the spirit of the treaty, its signatories (Iran in this case) must prove the peaceful nature of its program – something it is exactly not doing. In practical terms, nuclear fuel supplies will bring Iran closer to nuclear weapons unless it gives up its bid for uranium-enrichment cycle.
Israel’s attitude to the Iranian nuclear program is well known. Israel does not doubt that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Considering that Tehran is permanently threatening Israel, the latter is very sensitive to all events around the former’s nuclear program, particularly Russian-Iranian nuclear and military-technical cooperation.
This attention is explained by Russia’s role in resolving the whole package of problems around the Iranian nuclear issue. For this reason, at the talks in Moscow, Tsipi Livni is likely to discuss Russia’s responsibility for starting the supplies of enriched uranium to Iran.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.