Monday, December 17, 2007

Fuel Delivered to Bushehr

There seems to be a new dynamic in Iran's foreign relations beginning around the time of the NIE earlier in December 2007. One element of this is that Russia has begun delivering uranium to the Iranian nuclear plant in Bushehr.

The Russian company building the Bushehr plant, Atomstroiexport, said the delivery of the enriched uranium fuel began on Sunday.

The head of Iran's atomic energy agency, Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, later confirmed that the first delivery had arrived, according to Iran's state-run Irna news agency.

It seems to me that an agreement has been reached between the US and Iran. If the US had enough leverage to prevent Russia from delivering fuel in March when the Iranians expected it, then the US has enough leverage now.

It seems that a decision has been made not to apply that leverage. It is possible that the next IAEA report will show that Iran has slowed its enrichment efforts and it is possible that Iran has done nothing except try to calm Iraq.

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