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Russia dismisses U.S. charges against Iran

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW DEC. 15. Russia will not stop its nuclear cooperation with Iran despite U.S. claims that Teheran was developing nuclear weapons, a top Russian nuclear energy official said. ``We are not going to do it (cancel the $800-million deal to build a nuclear reactor in Bushehr), because there is no evidence we are violating anything,'' the Russian Atomic Energy Minister, Alexander Rumyantsev, said today.

Russia has insisted that the Bushehr nuclear plant would serve purely civilian purposes and remain under international supervision. Washington said on Friday it would "continue to work with other countries to get them to refrain from nuclear cooperation with Iran.''Mr. Rumyantsev described as "groundless'' U.S. suspicions that Iran was constructing facilities to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons at Natanz and Arak.

Iran had never denied plans to produce nuclear fuel, but these plans "did not break any of his obligations'' and Teheran was willing to place the nuclear laboratory in Natanz and the plant in Arak under IAEA control, the Russian Minister told the Itar-Tass news agency. ``You cannot make out anything in the published (U.S.) pictures'' of the Iranian facilities, Itar-Tass quoted Mr. Rumyantsev as saying. He added that Russia "has nothing to do'' with the construction of nuclear facilities at Natanz and Arak.

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