US Undersecretary of State John Bolton was expected to raise Russia's refusal to sign up to the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) during his meeting with foreign and defense officials.

Bolton will also meet Friday with Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev as part of an ongoing discussion about the safety of a project in which Russia is constructing the first nuclear power plant in Iran.

US and Russian negotiators will also touch on North Korea amid uncertainty about when -- or even if -- a new round of six-way consultations on the Stalinist state's nuclear standoff with the United States will take place.

Bolton met Thursday with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislyak for talks US officials said would focus on the PSI.

Russia is the only member of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations not to have signed up to the agreement. US officials have said they would like to see Russia on board by the time the United States hosts a G8 summit in June.

The aim of Bolton's visit "is to get Russia involved in the Proliferation Security Initiative. This is one of the focuses of John Bolton's visit," a US official in Moscow said.

Russia fears that the initiative will allow the United States to launch unilateral raids against ships and planes without agreement from international institutions like the UN Security Council where Russia has veto power.

"We have questions about this initiative's compliance with international legal norms," Interfax quoted a Russian foreign ministry official as saying.

But the diplomat added: "In general, the idea of intercepting vehicles shipping dangerous substances meets Russia's interests. We share the direction of this initiative."

Bolton is further expected to urge Moscow not to supply nuclear fuel to Iran's Bushehr reactor until the Islamic state provides further evidence to United Nations inspectors that it was not pursuing a nuclear weapons program.

Moscow has said it will not deliver nuclear fuel to Iran until Tehran signs up to an agreement that would see all of the spent material returned to Russia.

The United States and Israel fear the spent fuel could be reprocessed by Iran to create nuclear weapons, and Tehran has so far stalled on signing the agreement with Moscow.

Rumyantsev is expected to hold a new round of consultations in Iran next month, and the United States has recently applauded Russia's more cautious approach to the project.

Russia's nuclear cooperation with Iran was previously one of the main stumbling blocks in relations between Moscow and Washington.

WAR.WIRE