Iran announces progress on atomic power plant

By Fredrik Dahl TEHRAN,
Reuters, May 20, 2007


Iran has started building its first domestically-made atomic power plant, a senior official announced on Saturday, and Tehran's foreign minister said nuclear talks with the EU were likely in Spain this month.

The deputy head of the atomic energy agency said the planned facility would have a capacity of 360 megawatt (MW), in a statement underlining Iran's determination to press ahead with its nuclear program despite Western suspicions.

"In the next decade Iran will be one of the most talked-about countries in the world regarding domestic nuclear energy," Mohammad Saeedi of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

Iran is in a deepening standoff with major powers over its nuclear program which the West fears is aimed at making warheads. Tehran says it wants only to produce electricity.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, who has taken a lead role in Western contacts with Iran, has said it would "probably take years" to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Solana, a Spaniard, last met Iran's chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in Turkey on April 25-26 and agreed to hold more talks in the next few weeks.

"There is a high possibility that it (a meeting) will take place in Spain," Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the ILNA news agency.

He suggested it would be held sometime between May 22 and May 31. The official IRNA news agency had earlier said May 31 was the agreed date.