The first nuclear power plant in the Gulf seaport of Bushehr that Russia has been under contract to build is expected to put into operation by the end of the upcoming summer, and its operation does not pose a proliferation threat, said Sergey Novikov, secretary of Russia's atomic energy agency on March 16.

As far as the Bushehr plant is concerned, Russia will provide all the fuel it needs for the duration of its entire lifespan, and Russia and Iran, keen to ease US concerns over their nuclear ties, signed a special deal requiring Tehran to recover and return all the nuclear waste from the reactor to Moscow, Novikov told reporters from the "Voice of Russia" radio station in a recent interview.  

The United States and other Western nations have repeatedly claimed in recent years that Iran has gone in for the development of nuclear weapons secretly under the camouflage of a civilian nuclear power program it is pursuing. And Iran, however, gave a definite, flat denial.

The game between the US and Iran centered on nuclear issue has been deemed as a "fast knot" in bilateral relations. US President Barack Obama, however, said repeatedly before his inauguration in late January that he would review US policy toward Iran and resort to the stance of relying mainly on dialogue to resolve conflicts between them. Meanwhile, US Vice-President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton also asserted that the US is ready to hold direct talks with Iran as long as the latter has sincerity.

Nevertheless, President Obama has extended a section of US sanctions against Iran for at least another year, since its policy and moves "pose a serious threat to the US national security and interests," Obama said in a letter he addressed to US Congress on March 12. Public opinions hold that the "fast knot" relating to Iran's nuclear issue not yet to untie is one of the reasons for the extension of US sanctions against Iran.

The United States has all along imposed blockade and other economic sanctions against Iran after their diplomatic ties were severed in 1979 and, from 1995, it started to make its sanctions against Iran a regular practice for the reason that Iran is suspected and accused of being engaged in "terrorist activities" and of continuing its nuclear program in secret.

On March 17, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown warned that Iran faced "further and tougher sanctions" unless it agreed to the UN overseeing the program. "Iran's current nuclear program is unacceptable," the British leader said.

To counter with the decision of the US government to extend its sanctions against his country, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on March 13 that he is ready for dialogue… but to obstruct Iran's development with sanctions is "a childish idea and a big mistake".

Earlier, on Feb. 3 this year, Iran entered a new stage of its space program by carrying out its first ever entirely domestic satellite launch, and the nation subsequently announced to initiate a 12-year-project to send an astronaut into space before 2021. Moreover, Iran plans to install 50,000 centrifuges in the next five years.

The US-Iranian standoff has existed for a long period of time, and the new round of verbal battle mirrors the piled-up grievances and arduous practical problems prevalent in the bilateral ties between the two countries, critics noted. Iran contends that it is definitely exercising its inalienable national right to carry out the research and development of nuclear energy, and insists that it will not halt a uranium enrichment program for the sake of acquiring nuclear fuel. The US and other Western nations, nevertheless, maintains that Iran's nuclear energy development and particularly its uranium enrichment program give rise to suspicions for its development of nuclear weapons.

Iran's parliament speaker Ali Larijani on Tuesday, March 17, expressed "disappointment" over some moves of the new US government. Larijani, also the nation's former chief nuclear negotiator, told a news conference about the government of President Barack Obama and his promise of change that some approaches are "disappointing", adding that "time" will tell their true intentions. "Some approaches are disappointing. But we need time to examine their behavior… that there's not a wise view dominating their path," the powerful speaker said. Obama has, as a mater of course, not taken concrete, practical moves to change the existing US policy toward Iran.

By People's Daily Online and contributed by PD overseas resident reporters Yu Hongjian, Ma Xiaoning, Meng Xianglin and Wang Rujun.

(People's Daily March 19, 2009)