A good Russian opinion on Iranian nuclear programme

Oct 20, 2002
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UK
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BBC Tuesday, 1 March, 2005
Radzhab Safarov is the director of the Moscow-based Centre for Iranian Research and an advisor to the State Duma chairman:

The Iranian nuclear programme has a completely peaceful nature, and there is no evidence to the contrary. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the body responsible for the control over the spread of nuclear technology, has not yet presented any specific objections against it.
No other bodies, or governments, have the authority and sufficient expertise to assess this programme impartially. The IAEA checks the Iranian facilities on the weekly basis, but they have never found anything suspicious. I think the US's suspicions that Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons are not based on real facts, but on political attitudes.
If the US had a different kind of relationship with Iran, I am sure they would build dozens of nuclear power plants in this country. But since Iran is an independent and a rather stubborn state - from the US point of view - which does not succumb to the demands to suspend its nuclear programme, the US is exerting extreme pressure.
I don't think any country has a right to interfere with the Iranian nuclear programme, because it is a completely internal affair. As far as Russia is concerned, it is not worried about allegations that Iran might possess technology of dual nature.
If such concerns existed, it would have blocked this project and suspended co-operation with Iran in this field, because it would have been against its own interests. Russia and Iran have a common border in the Caspian Sea, so Iran's nuclear capability would threaten Russia's national interests, which are not confined to its own territory, but also lie in Central Asia and other former Soviet countries