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Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Explosion in Bushehr does not affect Russian workers at NPP

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Moscow, Feb 17, Itar-Tass/ACSNA/IRNA -- Wednesday`s explosion in the 
southern Iranian province of Bushehr has not affected the work of 
Russian specialists who are building a nuclear power plant in this 
region. 
"Russian specialists and the plant itself were not affected by the
explosion," an official at the personnel department of 
Atomstroiexport, the project general contractor, told Itar-Tass. 
"Ten minutes ago we telephoned Bushehr, and all 1,500 of our 
specialists are safe and sound, and the construction is going on 
according to schedule," he said. 
He said the construction site and the residential complex were 
located about 100 kilometers from the scene of the explosion. 
"Increased security is a permanent feature in the area of 
construction," the official said, adding, "The explosion will not 
affect the upcoming visit to Iran by the head of the Russian Federal 
Agency for Atomic Energy, Alexander Rumyantsev." 
Rumyantsev`s trip to Iran was scheduled for February 25-27. He 
will visit the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, as well as will meet 
with Vice President Gholam Reza Aqazadeh, who is also the head of the 
national Nuclear Energy Organization, Federal Agency for Atomic Energy
spokesman Nikolai Shingarev told Itar-Tass. 
"An additional protocol on the return of spent nuclear fuel to 
Russia is expected to be signed in Tehran as well," the spokesman 
added. 
A senior Iranian government official said the explosion in Bushehr
had been made during dam-building operations. 
According to the results of the investigation and information 
provided by the Bushehr governor, "The explosion that occurred in the 
Dailam region was the result of detonating a path for dam-building 
operations," a member of Iran`s Supreme National Security Council, Ali
Agha Mohammadi, said. 
Iranian sources said that the Arab-language television channel Al 
Alam had not released any reports on a missile attack in the province.
Earlier, Al Alam quoted witnesses as saying that the missile hit 
the ground and exploded about 20 kilometers from Dailam. It also 
claimed that Iran`s air defense systems had fired at the plane. 
But an official in the Dailam mayor`s office denied reports about 
a missile attack. 
Mehr News quoted him as saying that no one in Dailam had heard the
noise of a plane. He made an assumption that it might have been an 
explosion at an oil plant near the city. 
A representative of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps also 
denied these assertions. He said Al Alam`s report about an explosion 
was wrong. 
The military official said no missile had been fired at the city, 
and no plane fuel tank had fallen off. "We deny that," he said. 
An official in the Iranian Interior Ministry told journalists that
`there was no hostile attack`. In his view, this might have been `an 
incident` not connected with an aggressive foreign action. 
A Russian diplomat in Tehran said the explosion in Bushehr had 
nothing to do with the nuclear power plant that is under construction 
there. In his words, everything is calm at the construction site, and 
no incidents have occurred. 
The Federal Agency for Atomic Energy official said that the 
construction of the power plant in Bushehr was `fully in line with the
norms and rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and nuclear
fuel for the reactor in Bushehr will be supplied to Iran only after 
Tehran has signed the protocol on the obligatory return of spent 
nuclear fuel to Russia for storage and processing`. 
According to the Russian-Iranian inter-governmental agreement, 
Russia should begin nuclear fuel supplies to Iran months before the 
physical commissioning of the reactor. 
Its construction is to be completed at the beginning of 2006. 
The Federal Agency for Atomic Energy believes that the 
commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant `will not bring Iran 
closer to the creation of nuclear weapons`. 
"In the course of the VVER-1000 reactor`s work, plutonium does 
accumulate in the loaded nuclear fuel, but its amount is relatively 
small (less than one percent), and it is practically unfit by its 
isotope composition for use in the production of nuclear weapons," the
official said. 
"Moreover, removing plutonium from the nuclear fuel that is 
working in the reactor is a very complex technological task that will 
require a lot of time and tremendous financial expenditures. It is an 
even more challenging task to make a nuclear weapon from it. 
Theoretically this can be done, but so far no country has chosen this 
path and it is unlikely that any will because there are simpler ways 
to make nuclear weapons," the spokesman said. 
Russia and Iran signed the about one billion US dollar agreement 
on the construction of power unit No. 1 at Bushehr in 1995. The 
reactor will be able to generate 1,000 megawatt of electricity an 
hour. 
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