WASHINGTON, July 29 (Reuters) - The White House reacted mildly on Monday to Russia's approval of a long-term program to boost nuclear cooperation with Iran as senior U.S. officials prepared to visit Moscow for talks on the subject which continues to dog improving U.S.-Russia relations.
The trip by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and Undersecretary of State John Bolton was scheduled before plans for the expanded Russia-Iran nuclear program became public, but is certain to add urgency to their mission.
Russia has approved plans to construct up to six nuclear power reactors, expand conventional power stations, develop oil and gas deposits, jointly produce aircraft and cooperate in communications and metallurgy.
This would be in addition to Russia's 1990s agreement with Iran to build a nuclear plant at Bushehr on the Gulf coast, a project that has infuriated Washington, which considers Iran part of an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea.
Asked about the latest deal, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer noted that at their last meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and President George W. Bush had reached "agreement on the outcome, which is to prevent proliferation."
"We differ in some ways on how to get there but we're still working that through with Russia to make certain that anything they do -- if they do anything in Iran -- is done in a manner that does not lead to proliferation problems," he said.
The measured response reflects an administration suspicion that the expanded Russia-Iran cooperation plan reflected internal Kremlin political debate and was not necessarily a done deal, one official said.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush administration has become even more determined to crack down on countries supplying Iran and other so-called "rogue states" with technology for weapons of mass destruction. According to U.S. officials Russia and China are the world's leading arms technology suppliers to these states.
A TEST OF NEW DOCTRINE?
The Washington Post reported on Monday that Bushehr has become the subject of debate between the U.S. and Israel over whether the plant should be allowed to come on line in the next two to three years.
Israel, which views Bushehr as a threat to its security, has suggested it will not allow the plant to open.
"But as the plant moves nearer to completion, it also has emerged as a potential test case of the Bush administration's new doctrine of preempting threats to U.S. national security," the newspaper said.
But a senior U.S. official, asked if any other country besides Iraq was a likely near-term target of U.S. military action, told Reuters: "Not that I can see at the moment."
Another U.S. official dismissed talk of U.S. military action against Bushehr as "way out there."
The Bolton-Spencer trip, following on recent discussion between Bush and Putin in Moscow and Canada, will include a meeting with the head of Russia's ministry of atomic energy, among other officials.
"Bush believes Putin has committed pretty strongly to the idea that he doesn't want a nuclear-capable, ballistic-missile-equipped Iran," a senior official told Reuters.
When Russian officials dispute U.S. claims that Iran is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons, the Americans argue that there could be no other reason for a country with Iran's oil resources to want so many nuclear power reactors.
In recent months, there have been signs of new thinking that would seek to use economic incentives instead of coercion to persuade Moscow to cease proliferation the U.S. considers threatening.
Russia has pursued the nuclear relationship with Iran in part as a way to earn hard currency.
Senior U.S. officials have told Reuters the administration might acquiesce in Russian sales of conventional weapons sales -- excluding advanced equipment like fighter jets -- to Iran if Moscow ended nuclear weapons cooperation with Tehran.
Similarly, the administration may be able to accept continued Russian work on Iran's Bushehr civilian nuclear power plant "if Bushehr is truly divorced from any connection with the nuclear weapons program," said one senior official.
The problem is that the Russians have denied involvement with the Iranian nuclear weapons program, officials said.
Support for an economic compromise has come from Richard Perle, an influential U.S. administration adviser, who has recommended that Russia be forgiven its Soviet-era debt as a way of persuading it to end nuclear cooperation with Iran.
Russia's $42 billion Soviet-era debt to Western lenders is one of the Cold War's last unsettled financial problems.
Whether there might be any breakthrough during the Abraham-Bolton trip to Moscow was unclear. Because of Russian vacation schedules, the team was unlikely to have meetings with all the officials they wanted to see, officials said.