So will Russia accept full resposiblity for Iran's actions once the program is in place? Who is going to establish this confidence factor?

Russia Sets Rules to Back Iran Nuke Plan
Feb 15 11:06 AM US/Eastern

By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
VIENNA, Austria



Russia's foreign minister said Wednesday that Iran must eliminate international concerns it could use its nuclear program to make weapons before Moscow will support Tehran's right to domestically enrich uranium.
"Generally and in principle when confidence in the Iranian nuclear program is re-established ... we could come back to the possible implementation of the right that Iran has to develop a nuclear energy sector full scale," Sergey Lavrov told reporters in Vienna.

He declined to confirm news reports that Russian officials planned to meet with their Iranian counterparts in Moscow on Monday to discuss a plan that would move enrichment _ which can make either atomic fuel or the fissile core of nuclear warheads.

But Lavrov suggested that _ over the longer term _ the Russian offer, which would strip the Iranians of direct control of enrichment, was contingent on Tehran accepting a full and indefinite moratorium on plans to enrich uranium domestically.

"We are prepared to continue these negotiations, but ... Iran has to return to the moratorium" on enrichment, he told reporters.

Russia over the past two months has come to play an increasingly active role in U.S.-backed European efforts meant to pressure Iran to return to a freeze on enrichment activities, and its offer to host Iran's uranium enrichment program has become a centerpiece of international efforts to defuse tensions over Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Iran insists it is permitted to enrich under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but its critics say it forfeited that right because of serious international doubts about whether its nuclear ambitions are peaceful.
Iran officially ended a freeze on enrichment and related activities Jan. 10, when it removed IAEA seals on equipment and began uranium conversion to make the gas that, when spun in centrifuges, yields enriched uranium.
On Tuesday, the Iranians confirmed they had gone even further, saying they had started to introduce gas into several centrifuges in a small- scale operation representing the final stage of enrichment.

Although Lavrov refused to be drawn an any date for talks with the Iranians on the issue, Russia's ITAR-Tass news agency cited a Russian Embassy official in Tehran that the two sides will meet in Moscow on Monday on the issue.

The Iranian government informed Russian officials about their intention to participate in the negotiations on Feb. 20 _ four days later than originally planned, the ITAR-Tass news agency quoted an embassy official as saying.

"The Russian side has agreed to this," the Russian diplomat said on condition of anonymity.

The two sides had initially set Feb. 16 as a date for talks in Moscow. But after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Iran to the U.N. Security Council on Feb. 4, Tehran suspended some cooperation with the U.N. watchdog agency and said it would resume small-scale enrichment of uranium.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/02/15/D8FPL3682.html