Russian diplomacy is due to stand another "nuclear test", as it were, now that the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Said Jalili is coming to Moscow as the chief of a team of negotiators of Iran's nuclear problem, - a more acute issue of international politics. In the long run the issue boils down to whether Iran does or does not develop an A-bomb. So far there has been no evidence that it does, but the world community, above all the western nations, are over-suspicious.
Thus far Tehran has been unable to dispel the doubts. The world community has ignored Iran's claims that its nuclear programme is peaceful in character. The issue of just how Iran's uranium raw materials will be exchanged for the fuel elements for the Tehran nuclear reactor has served to add fuel to the flame. In keeping with the IAEA-proposed pattern Russia is due to take Iran's raw uranium to further enrich it and then hand it over to France, which will make fuel elements of it. Tehran has no objections but is prepared to exchange raw uranium for manufactured fuel elements and on Iranian soil. Russia is thus in the middle of interaction, both technological and political. So now Iran is turning to Russia in this country's capacity of a mediator, which is no easy part to act, says the leading research worker with the Institute of Oriental Studies Nina Mamedova in an interview with the Voice of Russia, and elaborates:
The situation that's arisen, Nina Mamedova says, calls for a need to persuade both sides that they can trust each other. If Iran handed over all the fuel it has produced to date, it would prove to one and all that no military programme is part of its plans.
If Moscow does manage to reach a compromise, this will amount to a true breakthrough. All that Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has been able to do up till now is to deplore the fact that Iran is rejecting the IAEA-suggested exchange formula, while the West is threatening with more sanctions. Russia's topmost diplomat pointed out that the wish to punish Tehran was not the right way to settle Iran's nuclear problem. The statement has been corroborated by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who says that when Iran celebrates another anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution early next month, it will make public "good news", as it were, concerning raw uranium's further enrichment in Iran proper. The Islamic Republic's leader hinted that the forthcoming news would have to do with the technological progress made, which would enable Iran to do without external assistance. It's anyone's guess whether the hints are justified and not a bluff to make the western nations more compliant. What's bad about it is that the Iranian President's statement amounts to a challenge and a threat that could provoke a backlash. The situation that's taken shape provides Moscow with a very real chance to make an unexpected and brilliant political move that would bring about a rapprochement between the positions or would even remove altogether the contradictions between all parties to the negotiating process.
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