"Iran is our neighbor, we cooperate with it and we will continue to cooperate," Putin

LONDON, June 3 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday, June 3, that his country would not halt its nuclear cooperation with Iran, but insisted Tehran's nuclear activities must come under international control.

"Iran is our neighbor, we cooperate with it and we will continue to cooperate," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a Group of Eight (G8) summit in the French spa of Evian, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

In parallel we will insist that all Iran's nuclear program remain under the control of the IAEA,", he told reporters, in reference the U.N. watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency.

The comment came after a senior British official told the BBC Monday that Putin told other leaders that Russia would halt "all nuclear exports" until Iran signed up to tougher nuclear inspections.

A Russian official at the summit said Moscow has called on Iran to allay international concerns about its nuclear program before the June 16 meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The IAEA board of governors is to meet at its Vienna headquarters on June 16-17 when its chief Mohamed ElBaradei will report on Iran's nuclear activities.

IAEA inspectors have been visiting nuclear sites that Washington has said may be hiding a nuclear weapons program.

The Russian official in Evian, who spoke on condition of anonymity, did not say what measures Russia might take if Iran did not allay its concerns before the IAEA meeting.

Suspended

In an earlier report published by The Independent, Putin suspended the sale of all nuclear material to Iran in a move the paper dubbed as calculated to cheer George Bush and allow the world's eight most powerful nations to present a united front against the spread of nuclear weapons.

Putin's announcement cleared the way for the G8 summit in Evian to issue a public warning to Iran and North Korea, the two countries President Bush bracketed together with Iraq as the "axis of evil", said the British paper.

North Korea, unlike Iran, admits having a nuclear weapons program.

One British official was quoted as saying that "It is now the international consensus that the issue of weapons of mass destruction did not disappear with Saddam Hussein."

The British delegation in Evian was also anxious to allay fears that this meant invasion with either of the two "rogue states", The Independent reported.

They said the world leaders had agreed that "not all proliferation challenges require the same remedies".

The U.S. and Britain argued that invasion of Iraq is justified on that the country possessed weapons of mass destruction. But two months into the end of invasion, no such banned weapons have been found so far.

In the final communiqué,  Iran has been told that it must immediately open its nuclear program to "comprehensive examination" by the IAEA, to allay international concern that it is secretly manufacturing nuclear weapons.

The same communiqué accused North Korea of a "clear breach" of international law and urged its government to "visibly, verifiably and irreversibly dismantle any nuclear weapons program".

The nine-paragraph statement, agreed by the heads of government of the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan, also called on all states to tighten controls on the transfer of any "materials, technology or expertise" that could be used to generate weapons of mass destruction.

"We recognize that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery poses a growing danger to us all. Together with the spread of international terrorism, it is the pre-eminent threat to international security," read the statement.

Iran on Monday rejected the mounting international calls for it to sign an additional protocol of the Non-Proliferation Treaty that would allow tougher inspections of its nuclear program.

The refusal came after Russia, which is helping it build its first atomic power plant in Bushehr in southern Iran, joined calls for Tehran to grant IAEA inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities.