MOSCOW — Bristling at criticism from Washington and at home, Russian officials vowed Thursday to go ahead with sales of atomic reactors to Iran and insisted that the lucrative hard-currency transactions will not help the Iranians develop nuclear weapons.
Since it was signed last month, Moscow's initial $800-million contract with Iran has become a new test of U.S.-Russian relations, already strained by the Russian military assault on the breakaway republic of Chechnya.
Atomic Energy Minister Viktor N. Mikhailov, the Russian who signed the deal, offered his most detailed defense of it Thursday after official nuclear and environmental monitors in Moscow echoed the Clinton Administration's alarm that Russia might help Iran become a nuclear power.
Under the contract, signed Jan. 8, Russia will provide specialists, equipment and technology to help Iran finish a 1,300-megawatt light-water reactor--a West German project halted by Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.
Mikhailov said Russia expected to build three similar facilities at Bushehr, the same Persian Gulf location, for $2.2 billion more.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher warned that Iran is "engaged in a crash effort to develop nuclear weapons" and pressed Russian Foreign Minister Andrei V. Kozyrev to cancel the contract at a meeting last month in Geneva.
Undersecretary of State Lynn Davis made the point in a meeting Wednesday in Washington with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, and Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott repeated it to Mamedov on Thursday. House Speaker Newt Gingrich and other senior Republicans have called for cutting off U.S. aid to Russia if the project goes ahead, but the Russians have not budged.
Speaking to reporters after a Cabinet meeting, Mikhailov made it clear that Russia values its commercial contracts at least as much as American aid.
He said Russia feels free to offer Iran nuclear technology because Tehran allows inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and complies with the other terms of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
"I do not see any reason why Russia should give up these contracts, the more so that Iran pays in convertible currency," Mikhailov said. "No credits on our part are required."
By contrast, he said, dealing with Washington is unprofitable.
