Russian Officials In Iran For Bushehr Talks

Work being carried out at Bushehr in April (AFP) July 1, 2007 -- Top officials from Russia's state-run firm Atomstroieksport are in Iran today for talks on the Bushehr nuclear-power plant.

Russia announced in March that construction on the plant in southern Iran was being delayed due to Tehran's alleged failure to meet payments.


Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said today's talks are focused on "remaining questions" about "concluding work" on the plant.


(dpa, ITAR-TASS)


FURTHER READING
Sanctions Controversy
On March 24, the UN Security Council adopted a new round of sanctions against Iran. Tehran denounced the move as "illegal, useless, and unjustified." more
Inside Bushehr
Iran's Bushehr nuclear plant is more than 90 percent complete. RFE/RL presents a gallery of images from inside the facility. more

Talking Technical

Talking Technical

A control panel at the Bushehr nuclear power plant (Fars)

CASCADES AND CENTRIFUGES: Experts and pundits alike continue to debate the goals and status of Iran's nuclear program. It remains unclear whether the program is, as Tehran insists, a purely peaceful enegy project or, as the United States claims, part of an effort to acquire nuclear weapons.
On June 7, 2006, RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel spoke with nuclear expert Shannon Kile of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden to help sort through some of the technical issues involved. "[Natanz] will be quite a large plant," Kile said. "There will be about 50,000 centrifuges and how much enriched uranium that can produce [is] hard to say because the efficiency of the centrifuges is not really known yet. But it would clearly be enough to be able to produce enough [highly-enriched uranium] for a nuclear weapon in fairly short order, if that's the route that they chose to go...." (more)


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THE COMPLETE STORY: RFE/RL's complete coverage of controversy surrounding Iran's nuclear program.


CHRONOLOGY

An annotated timeline of Iran's nuclear program.