RUSSIA defied stern American warnings yesterday to announce that it had agreed to start shipping nuclear fuel to Iran in three months.

Within hours President Bush vowed to stand by Israel if its security was threatened by Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons. He said that it would be unacceptable for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

The twin announcements look certain to generate some frank exchanges when Mr Bush meets President Putin in Slovakia next week. They also raised the already high stakes in the Middle East, and Mr Bush made clear that the region would dominate his discussions with European leaders in Brussels next week.

In a press conference in Washington, Mr Bush made plain that Syria was also in US sights. He said that it was out of step with its neighbours and should withdraw its 15,000 troops from Lebanon.

Russia announced its deal with Iran despite Washington’s prolonged efforts to dissuade Moscow from supplying fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant, fearing that it could be upgraded to make a dirty bomb or nuclear weapon.

But Iranian state television announced yesterday that a deal would be signed next week during a visit to Iran by Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Russian Atomic Energy Agency.

The signing will take place on February 26, two days after the Bush-Putin summit. The first shipment of fuel will be delivered three months later, and Russia will provide fuel to Bushehr for the next ten years. Under the deal, Iran is supposed to return spent fuel to Siberian storage units, but that clause is unlikely to allay Washington’s fears that Iran will use it to obtain weapons-grade material.

Asked if he was concerned that Israel may seek to launch a pre-emptive strike against the Bushehr plant and other alleged nuclear facilities around Iran, Mr Bush pointedly failed to restrain America’s pivotal Middle East ally. “Well, of course, first of all, Iran has made it clear it doesn’t like Israel, to put it bluntly,” he said. Iran, like many other countries in the region, has failed to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist.

Mr Bush said that his objective was to use diplomacy to persuade Iran not to develop a nuclear weapon. “There’s more diplomacy, in my judgment, to be done,” he said.

“But clearly, if I was the leader of Israel and I listened to some of the statements by the Iranian ayatollahs about the security of my country, I’d be concerned about Iran having a nuclear weapon. And in that Israel is our ally, in that we’ve made a very strong commitment to support Israel, we will support Israel if their security is threatened.”

Israel bombed Saddam Hussein’s fledgeling nuclear plant at Osiraq in 1981, and Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, has said he feared that Israel might do the same in Iran.

At the start of Mr Bush’s second term, the Middle East is already dominating his overseas agenda and could yet become the defining issue of the next four years.

In Brussels next week he will rebuff European pleas for the US to join Britain, France and Germany in negotiating economic and political incentives for Iran in return for verifiable guarantees that it will not develop a nuclear weapon. The Europeans do not believe that Tehran will agree to anything unless it involves the US.

He said that he looked forward to “discussing strategies” with European leaders about how best to work together to tell Iran that “it should not have a nuclear weapon”.

But Mr Bush made clear he was planning to tread the same emollient path through Europe as the one taken to wide acclaim by Condoleezza Rice, his Secretary of State, last week.

Mr Bush conceded that transatlantic differences over Iraq had caused traditional allies “to talk past each other”. He added: “I recognise that and I want to make sure the Europeans understand that I know that, and that as we move beyond the differences of the past that we can work a lot together to achieve big objectives.”

He added that he aimed to confound the view of Europeans that he and his Administration cared about nothing but America’s national security. “We also care deeply about hunger and disease,” he said, adding that he would also have proposals on how better to fight climate change with new technologies.

Depending on how far Mr Bush’s climate-change proposals go, they could be a boost for Tony Blair, who has repeatedly tried to persuade the President to take the issue seriously.

Mr Bush twice mentioned Mr Blair, the only foreign leader whom he named.

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