US-Russia nuclear deal upstages Iran

Se pare ca suntem in preajma unui acord nuclear Rusia - USA, in care Rusia o sa primeasca o comanda de miliarde de dolari pentru a vinde Americii uraniu imbogatzit. Dar Rusia o sa trebuie sa dea ceva in schimb.

By M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times, 9/02/2008

There was a time when Iran might have believed that a multipolar world order would be just and fair from the point of view of the "suppressed nations". If that notion wasn't shattered long ago, it was surely was last Friday when the director of Rosatom, Russia's federal agency for nuclear power, Sergei Kiriyenko, urgently flew to Washington on a one-day "working visit".

Russia's nuclear czar was rushing to formalize a deal between Russia and the United States that Moscow has been keenly seeking for the past several years. From Washington's point of view, the timing couldn't have been better. Just as it seemed a biting UN Security Council sanctions regime against Iran was impossible to achieve, prospects are brightening.

Tehran is not the only capital that must worry if the two heavyweights of the nuclear order begin hobnobbing. Many countries - such as India and South Africa - would also be affected by any redrawing of the nuclear fuel trade regime. But it is Iran which is in the firing line.

US-Russia nuclear deal
In Washington, Kiriyenko and US Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez signed a trade agreement allowing Russia to incrementally boost enriched uranium exports to the US. The deal allows the sale of Russian enriched uranium directly to US utilities.

Previously, such transactions had to be routed through the US Enrichment Corporation, a special intermediary agent, under a conversion program known as HEU-ELU. The discriminatory regime kept Russia out of the highly lucrative enriched uranium trade with the US. The HEU-LEU, popularly called the "Megatons to Megawatts agreement", dates to 1993 and stipulates that Russia should convert 500 tonnes of high-enriched uranium or HEU, which is equivalent to approximately 20,000 nuclear warheads, out of its dismantled Soviet-era nuclear weapon stockpile into low-enriched uranium, or LEU, before converting it into nuclear fuel for use in the US.

The Washington deal means a lot to Russia - commercially, politically and strategically. Kiriyenko admitted it is worth US$5-6 billion in commercial terms in the coming five-year period alone. By 2014, one in five American nuclear plants will be running on Russian uranium. The access to the US market enables Russia to fully utilize its uranium enrichment capacity, which stands at 40% of the world total.

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