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QUESTION: On Iran and Russia, Russia has now made the first fuel deliveries to Iran. Do you not wish that they had not taken that step? And also on Russia, President Putin today said he would serve as prime minister under Medvedev if he is elected. Does this not seem to you to seem almost to be verging on farce?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, on the matter of fuel for Bushehr, we have discussed this with the Russians over the last several weeks. As you know, the United States has been supportive of the Bushehr project in the last couple of years because we believe that it is exactly the kind of effort that could provide for Iran a civil nuclear program without the fear of the proliferation risk because Bushehr relies on the provision of fuel and then a takeback of that fuel under very clear and tough safeguards that the Russians have insisted upon. And so we believe that this is, in fact, the way that Iran should acquire civil nuclear power, which is not to have enrichment and reprocessing itself but to rely on assured fuel supply from another country.

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