Putin, European Leaders Agree on Iran Nuclear Program

March 18 (Bloomberg) -- German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac said Russia's $1 billion project to construct a nuclear-power plant in Iran is not in conflict with their attempts to dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear-weapons program.

``We have a common interest in Iran not having atomic and nuclear weapons,'' Schroeder said at a news conference in Paris today after talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. ``The Russian policy is in this spirit.''

Russia is building a nuclear reactor in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr to generate electricity. The U.S. has urged Putin to abandon the project, arguing that Iran, the Middle East's second-biggest oil producer, doesn't need nuclear energy and is building the reactor to help it develop nuclear weapons.

France, Germany, and the U.K. have been seeking to persuade Iran to end the program through negotiations and economic incentives. The United Nations atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has criticized Iran for failing to cooperate fully with the body's inspectors.

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