Iran said Friday it will press ahead with its controversial uranium-enrichment program so it can provide fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant due to go online this weekend.
Iran said Friday it will press ahead with its controversial
uranium-enrichment program so it can provide fuel for the Russian-built Bushehr
nuclear plant due to go online this weekend.
"Enrichment [of uranium] for producing fuel for the Bushehr plant and
other plants will continue," the country's atomic chief, Ali Akbar Salehi,
told state news agency IRNA.
Iran
's
first nuclear power plant, in the southern port city of
Bushehr
, is
due to be launched Saturday.
Russia
has
built the plant and also supplied it with fuel.
But Salehi said
Iran
would
pursue uranium enrichment as
Tehran
may
not always be in a position to buy fuel for the plant from
Moscow
.
"The Bushehr plant has a lifespan of 60 years and we plan to use it for 40
years. Suppose we buy fuel for 10 years from
Russia
. What
are we going to do for the next 30 to 50 years?" Salehi said.
He said the contract with
Russia
doesn't stipulate that
Tehran
has
always to buy fuel from
Moscow
, as
the "memorandum of understanding says they will meet our demand if we
request" it.
The Bushehr plant is scheduled to go online after more than three decades of
delay.
In a separate report, IRNA cited Ali Asghar Soltanieh
Iran
's envoy
to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations atomic watchdog,
as saying that the Bushehr launch symbolises
Tehran
's
"dominance over the nuclear fuel cycle."
The Bushehr plant isn't directly under U.N. sanctions, although
Tehran
has
been slapped by four sets of punitive measures for pursuing the sensitive
uranium-enrichment program.
The latest round of U.N. sanctions were imposed June 9.
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