Russia will not share laser technology used in building nuclear weapons with Iran after a personal request from US President Bill Clinton to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, the White House said Tuesday.
"We have worked with the Russians for some time now on trying to implement effective export controls. There is a particular project that became known to us sometime ago and we were concerned about it," said White House spokesman Joe Lockhart.
"The president has raised (those concerns) at the last two meetings (with President Putin) and that contact has been suspended," he said.
The two leaders met most recently at the G8 Summit in Okinawa, Japan, in July and 10 days ago at the UN Millennium Summit in New York.
According to the New York Times, the United States believes that the laser technology Russia was transferring to Iran, which creates nuclear combustion by separating uranium isotopes, has no practical civilian applications because of its high cost -- WASHINGTON (AFP)
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