Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi announced Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will open its first nuclear power plant at Bushehr in September, passing the “point of no return.”
Salehi, deputy to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and also director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told the semi-official Fars News Agency, "We hope that, as our Russian friends and Iranian colleagues have said, the reactor will launch operation in September. We feel that we have reached a no-return point, and from now on the ground is paved for the final launch of the reactor.”
He said the plant’s reactor passed the last pre-launch test on Wednesday and it is ready to come on-line later in the summer.
Russia has been building the nuclear facility since 1994, and its vested interest in Iran’s nuclear power plant has conflicted with Western pressures to back harsh sanctions aimed at halting the unsupervised development of nuclear projects. China has invested heavily in several plants under construction and has balked at tough sanctions.
Iran has denied charges by Israel and the United States that Iran is using developing capability to produce a nuclear warhead that can be used to attack Israel. Ahmadinejad previously has said that Israel is a “cancer” and should be "wiped off the map.”
Iran recently announced it is producing 20 percent grade enriched uranium - a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon, but still far below the necessary quality.