Russia Delays Nuke Fuel Shipments to Iran

In February Moscow and Tehran signed a fuel supply deal long opposed by Washington, which believes that Iran could use Russian know-how to make nuclear weapons.

At the time officials said fuel shipments to the Bushehr plant may start as soon as April.

"It's difficult to say when they (shipments) are going to start but I think we are going to do this in the autumn," the source in Russia's Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters.

Russia's nuclear ties with Iran, which date back to the early 1990s, have been marked by many delays that diplomats have linked to Moscow's reluctance to blatantly push ahead with a plan in a way that can seriously hurt its ties with Washington.

But the source, speaking on condition on anonymity, said the latest delay did not have any underlying political reasons.

"There is really no need to start shipments until autumn," the official said.

For Bushehr to come on stream, Russia needs to supply the fuel - currently held at a storage facility in Siberia - at least six months in advance.

That means the fuel does not have to be there until early next year because the plant is tentatively due to start operating some time later in 2006.

The Iranian embassy in Moscow and the state nuclear fuel company were not available for comment.

A key part of the February deal obliges Tehran to return all spent nuclear fuel to Russia. Moscow hopes this will allay U.S. worries that Iran may use the spent fuel, which could be reprocessed into bomb-grade plutonium, to develop weapons.

Iran, OPEC's second largest oil producer, has long denied charges it is secretly seeking nuclear weapons and has received strong backing from Moscow, which sees cooperation with Iran as a way to strengthen its role in the Middle East.

Once operational, Bushehr will generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Initiated before Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution and badly damaged during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the project was later revived with Russian help and has cost about $1 billion.