US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Tuesday that the United States still supports Russian proposal that would establish a Russia-Iran joint venture on Russian soil.

"We have been supportive of the Russian proposal, which would be a joint venture with enrichment and reprocessing on Russian soil and in which there would be an effort or we believe minimal proliferation risk," Rice said after talks with visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergeri Lavrov.

While the United States supports a civil nuclear program, Rice said that there needs to be a way to provide for civil nuclear power that does not have a proliferation risk.

The United States thinks that the Russian proposal could be achieved, Rice said.

The United States has said that it supports Russia's proposal on Iran's nuclear issue but stressed that Iran is not moving to the direction of dismantling its nuclear capability and the country can not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)