Russia ? Russia began shipping nuclear fuel on Monday to an atomic power plant being built in Iran, a move that both Moscow and Washington say should persuade Tehran to cease a uranium enrichment program that could produce a nuclear weapon.

Iranian officials rejected the renewed calls to stop the enrichment process, however, saying it was still needed to supply a second nuclear power plant it claimed to have begun building.

The shipment of 82 tons of uranium fuel rods – to a nuclear plant that Russia is building at the Persian Gulf port of Bushehr – comes two weeks after a U.S. intelligence report concluded that Iran had a covert nuclear weapons program but halted its development in 2003.

The White House at one time opposed the idea of Russian fuel shipments. But President Bush said Monday that he supports the shipments because it should entice Tehran to abandon its own enrichment work, a process needed in both civilian and military nuclear programs.