Iran to launch Bushehr nuclear power plant next year

TEHRAN, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) -- The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran said Wednesday his country's first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr will come on stream by the next autumn, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

"We will launch the Bushehr power plant in the first half of next (Iranian) year (beginning on March 21)," chief of the organization Ali Akbar Salehi told Fars.

"We hope to hear good news on Bushehr power plant in the first half of the (next Iranian) year as the plant has passed most tests successfully," he was quoted as saying.

In November, Iran's Ambassador to Moscow Seyed Mahmoud Reza Sajjadi told Fars that Russians intend to put Bushehr nuclear plant into operation by the end of 2009, and that there are several tests which should be conducted on the plant before it can go operational.

The country's 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant was originally constructed in the mid-1970s by Siemens of Germany but was abandoned with the outbreak of the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Iran and Russia, after reaching an agreement on nuclear cooperation in 1992, signed a contract in January 1995 to finish the construction of the plant, the completion of which has been repeatedly delayed.