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Iran: United States to Offer New Proposal to End Russian Assistance The United States plans to offer Russia a deal in which Moscow would end assistance to Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for contracts to reprocess spent nuclear fuel that originated in the United States, Nuclear Fuel reported (see GSN, Sept. 20). Under former U.S. President Bill Clinton, negotiations with Russia on the issue of nuclear assistance to Iran were apparently progressing enough that Iran focused all its resources on building its primary Bushehr nuclear site — at the expense of the Bushehr 2 site — fearing that Moscow’s cooperation might end at any time, according to Nuclear Fuel. U.S.-Russian progress halted, however, under current U.S. President George W. Bush, and Iran and Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy, known as Minatom, have discussed furthering their nuclear relationship, Nuclear Fuel reported. Russian diplomats have recently said that the possibility of receiving and reprocessing spent fuel and supplying mixed-oxide fuel to foreign reactors has Moscow talking to Washington again. Under Clinton, the United States “never understood that unless Minatom is offered an alternative way to make money” it would not stop doing business with Iran, a Russian diplomatic source said. If Minatom were to overcome opposition within Russia to accepting more radioactive materials, it could store or possibly reprocess spent nuclear fuel from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and western European countries, according to Nuclear Fuel (Mark Hibbs, Nuclear Fuel, Sept. 30).
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