Russia claims "no economic necessity" for Iran to continue uranium enrichment

RIA Novosti (Russia) has this story today:

Russia's foreign minister said on Wednesday that Moscow saw no economic necessity for Iran to continue its controversial program to enrich uranium.

Iran's nuclear program has been at the center of an international dispute, with Western countries suspecting Tehran of covering up a weapons program and Iran saying it needs nuclear fuel for energy.

"We are attempting to persuade the Iranians that the freezing of this program would be beneficial for Iran in as much as it would lead to immediate negotiations with the six [international negotiators], including the United States," Sergei Lavrov said.

Russia, which is helping the Iranians build the country's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran, announced the start of nuclear fuel deliveries to the plant on December 17.

If Iran were to agree to freeze its uranium enrichment program, then, said Lavrov, subsequent negotiations with the Iran Six - Russia, the U.S. China, Britain, France and Germany - would help lift, "once and for all, the suspicions that the Iranian nuclear program possesses any other kind of component than a peaceful one."....