Iran will build its first indigenous nuclear fusion research reactor by 2020, a top researcher said on Monday.

"We aim to build... at least one home-made nuclear fusion experimental reactor," Asghar Sedigh-Zadeh, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Plasma Physics and Nuclear Fusion Research Center, was quoted by the Isna news agency as saying.

The number of personnel working on the project will be increased from the current 36 to 2000 in the next decade, he said.

Sedigh-Zadeh said the nuclear fusion reactor would mainly be used to generate electricity, as well as to produce "radiopharmaceuticals, a cure for cancer, radiation therapy and nanotechnology."

Iranian Vice President Ali Akbar Salehi, who also heads the AEOI, said in late July an initial budget of $8 million had been set aside for the new research program.

Western powers suspect Iran of seeking to build nuclear weapons under the guise of its nuclear program, which Tehran says is aimed at the peaceful generation of civilian energy.

On June 9, the UN Security Council passed a resolution imposing a fourth set of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program.

MOSCOW, August 30 (RIA Novosti)