Asians, Europeans Offer Partnership in Building N. Power Plants for Iran

Some Asian and European states have offered to build new nuclear power plants for Iran, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi said.

“Some European countries have contacted us and demanded us not to be in a rush for signing contracts on the construction of new power plants, saying that they are interested to cooperate with us in building new nuclear power plants,” Salehi said in an interview with Iran-based Arabic-language al-Alam news channel on Sunday.

He also mentioned similar proposals by a number of Asian states, and added, “We have welcomed the proposal, but we will not wait for them to see the conditions ripe for taking action in this regard since we act based on our national interests.”

Salehi reminded that Iran now has the Bushehr nuclear power plant and has inked two contracts with Russia for building new power plants.

AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi announced in September that the country would start building two new nuclear power plants in the Southern province of Bushehr in the current Iranian year (that will end on March 20).

“We reached agreements in our (recent) talks with the Rosatom (the Russian contractor) Chief on the construction of two power plants with a minimum capacity of 1,000-megawatt and equipped with water sweetening systems beside Bushehr’s first nuclear power plant,” Kamalvandi said.

In March, Russia’s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation and the AEOI reached an agreement to construct at least two more nuclear power plants in Bushehr. According to Kamalvandi, the agreement is part of a 1992 deal between the two countries on further nuclear cooperation.

Under the agreement, the new facilities will be built next to the first unit of the Bushehr nuclear power plant and each will have the capacity to produce at least 1,000 megawatts of electricity, Kamalvandi said, adding that the deal also includes the construction of two desalination units.