Iran intends to build the second reactor at the Bushehr nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1,000 MW, according to a statement by Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization head Fereydoun Abbasi, Mehr news agency reported on Sunday.
The construction of the second Bushehr nuclear power plant will begin in 2013, Mehr reported, without giving any further details.
Media reports say Iran has invited inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to visit the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which was built with the assistance of Russia, in 2013.
“We have already received an invitation [from Iran] and next year our mission will be in Bushehr,” Miroslav Lipar, head of the agency’s Operational Safety Section, said on Friday
The plant's General Designer Valery Limarenko said in mid-May Bushehr will start commercial energy production by the end of 2012.
Under a bilateral agreement approved by the IAEA, Russia will operate the plant, supply its fuel and take away all the spent fuel for the next two or three years, but will eventually hand over full control to Iran.
The construction of Bushehr took more than three decades and has been plagued by delays. Russia signed a contract with Iran in February 1998 to complete the plant, which German companies first began back in 1975.
Concerns have been growing in Israel and the West that Iran is seeking to build an atomic bomb, although Tehran insists its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.
