Atomic mehr

Bushehr will be completed in the fall

Yesterday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the country would independently build nuclear power plants if other states refused to cooperate in their construction. “Today we invite you to take part in the construction of Iranian nuclear power plants. But we warn you: if you refuse, know that the Iranian people, with the help of their scientists, relying on their capabilities, will build nuclear power plants themselves,” Ahmadinejad said at a rally of thousands.

These words were heard in the province of Bushehr, where the first Iranian nuclear power plant is being built with the participation of Russian specialists . As Ahmad Fiyazbakhsh, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, said yesterday, Tehran is currently conducting “negotiations with Moscow on a ten-year agreement on the annual supply of nuclear fuel to the Bushehr nuclear power plant.” So the Iranian side has no reason to accuse Russia of intending to refuse cooperation with Tehran. At the beginning of the week, the general contractor of the construction, Atomstroyexport CJSC, confirmed the completion of deliveries of nuclear fuel to the site.

Yesterday, Mr. Fiyazbakhsh partially clarified the timing of the completion of the construction of the station: “At the end of the month of Mehr (according to the Iranian calendar, it lasts from September 23 to October 22. - Ed. ) the launch phase of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will begin, and after a short time its operation will begin " According to him, the construction of the station is “in the stage of serious and rapid implementation.”

Ahmad Fiyazbakhsh promised that the first Iranian nuclear power plant with a capacity of 360 MW, built by local specialists, will be launched in 2017. It will run on nuclear fuel produced in Iran. At the end of 2007, Tehran announced its intention to announce a tender for the construction of 19 new nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1000 MW each.

The West has repeatedly expressed dissatisfaction with the implementation of the Bushehr project, fearing that the development of the nuclear industry in Iran will lead to the creation of a nuclear bomb. Israel made it clear that it could bomb the Bushehr reactor. Yesterday Ahmadinejad said the Israelis were "very weak to do this."

Iran is toughening its rhetoric ahead of a UN Security Council discussion of a resolution to strengthen sanctions imposed on Tehran for its refusal to suspend its nuclear program. As an Iranian diplomatic source told Vremya Novostei, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is preparing a new report on Iran, and the document “should be favorable for the Iranian side.” “If IAEA Director General Muhammad ElBaradei states the fact of successful cooperation between his agency and Tehran, the need for discussions within the UN Security Council will completely disappear,” Vremya Novostey’s interlocutor is confident.

An expert at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, Vladimir Averchev, noted in a conversation with Vremya Novostey that “Iran has made its nuclear installations much more accessible to the IAEA.” Our interlocutor believes: “The report of Muhammad ElBaradei will reflect the real state of affairs, including the fact that the IAEA finds no traces of a military component in Iran’s nuclear program. "After the release of such a report, it will be much more difficult to pass any resolution on tightening sanctions against Iran."

Petr ISKENDEROV