Iran to Order More Nuclear Power Plants from Moscow

Mos News | June 28 2006

A senior Iranian official has voiced frustration at delays in construction of the Bushehr nuclear power station by Russia and said Iran hoped to order another two nuclear power stations from Moscow, in an interview quoted by AFP.

Deputy Foreign Minister Mehdi Safari said on Tuesday, Russia had yet to deliver nuclear fuel for the plant in southwest Iran, that equipment had not been delivered and that work had also been slowed by personnel changes on the Russian side.

“All this creates certain difficulties in keeping to the delivery timetable. We hope for the rapid solution of these problems and plan to order two more atomic power stations from Russia,” each with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts, Safari told the Russian daily Gazeta.

“The joint work has dragged out, but I am confident that construction will be finished at the end of 2006,” Safari was quoted as saying.

The United States has urged Russia to halt work at Bushehr, suspecting that Iran’s nuclear energy program is a cover for developing nuclear weapons.

Tehran has repeatedly complained of delays by its ally Moscow in completing work on Iran’s first nuclear power station.

Work on building a nuclear facility at Bushehr was first begun by German contractors in the 1970s but was halted by the Iranian revolution and the Iran- Iraq war.

Safari reiterated Iran’s insistence on having a peaceful nuclear energy program.

“The use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is our legal right and Iranian politicians insist on it. For this reason we will fully cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency,” he said.

“America presents our work in a distorted form. We are open to negotiations. It is the West that closes them off unilaterally,” he said.

Russia has supported Western calls for Iran to halt nuclear enrichment and has proposed setting up a joint venture to enrich uranium for Iran on Russian territory.

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