BUSHEHR, Iran, Aug. 21: A defiant Iran on Saturday began loading fuel into its Russian-built first nuclear power plant in the face of stiff opposition from world powers to its controversial atomic programme.
Despite leading Western opposition to the Islamic republic's project to enrich uranium in defiance of four sets of UN sanctions, the United States said it saw no “proliferation risk” from the new plant.
Western nations suspect that Iranian uranium enrichment masks a weapons drive, a charge strongly denied by Tehran.
After three-and-a-half decades of delay, engineers finally began transferring the atomic fuel supplied by Russia in the presence of UN inspectors into the plant in the southern port city of Bushehr.
“Despite all pressures, sanctions and hardships forced by Western nations, we are witnessing Iran's peaceful nuclear activities through the start of the Bushehr power plant,” Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters.
“This is the symbol of the heroic Iranian nation’s resistance and determination in achieving its goals,” he said.
In Washington, the US state department spokes-man, Mr Darby Holladay, said the $1 billion reactor “underscores that Iran does not need an indigenous enrichment capability if its intentions are purely peaceful.”
“We recognise that the Bushehr reactor is designed to provide civilian nuclear power and do not view it as a proliferation risk,” Mr Holladay said.
The Russian nuclear chief, Mr Sergei Kiriyenko, in Bushehr for Saturday’s ceremony, said that “countdown” for the actual running of the nuclear power plant had now begun.
Mr Kiriyenko later said the Bushehr facility, which is not targeted under UN or other sanctions, was built under the supervision of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors.
Any “country which sticks by IAEA norms and safety regulations has the right to peaceful nuclear technology,” he said, adding there were no plans for Russia to build more nuclear power stations for Tehran.
The much-anticipated fuel loading comes despite Moscow, a long-time nuclear ally of Tehran, hardening its position on Iran's nuclear programme.