Iran plugs first nuclear power plant into grid

Iran’s first nuclear power plant has finally begun to provide electricity to the national grid, official media reported on Sunday, a long-delayed milestone in the nuclear ambitions of a country the West fears is covertly try to develop atomic bombs.

"The Atomic Energy Agency announced that atomic electricity from Bushehr power plant joined the national grid with a power of around 60 megawatts on Saturday at 2329 (1859 GMT)," the official news agency IRNA reported.

The start-up will come as a relief to Tehran after many years of delays and false starts at the plant it hopes will show the world it has joined the nuclear club despite sanctions imposed in an attempt to curb its disputed nuclear progress.

The $1-billion, 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant will be formally inaugurated on September 12, by which time it will be operating at 40 percent capacity, Hamid-Khadem Qaemi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), told the state-controlled Arabic language TV station al-Alam.

The AEOI was not immediately available to comment.

The plant on the Gulf coast is the first of what Iran says will become a network of nuclear facilities that will reduce its reliance on its abundant fossil fuels and is a showpiece of what it says is a purely peaceful atomic programme.

Bushehr’s start-up comes with Russia pushing to revive talks between global powers and Iran about its separate uranium enrichment work, seen abroad as a potential proliferation threat since highly refined uranium fuels atomic bombs.


/APA/