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Russian high-ranking officials to visit Bushehr start-up ceremony

The Bushehr nuclear power plant will be officially inaugurated in Iran’s southern province on Monday

TEHRAN, September 12 (Itar-Tass) — The Bushehr nuclear power plant will be officially inaugurated in Iran’s southern province on Monday.

Taking part in the ceremony will by Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko, the head of the Russian state-run nuclear power corporation Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi, the president of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani and Iran’s Energy Minister Majid Namjoo.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant was started in 1975 by Germany’s Kraftwerk Union AG – Siemens’ subsidiary, but the construction was brought to a halt after Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979. On January 8, 1995, the Russian-Iranian contract was signed to resume the construction of the first power-generating unit. In 1998 the two countries inked an addendum to the contract on the plant’s turnkey construction by Russia’s Atomstroiexport.

“We’ve been waiting for this event for 35 years,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi told a news conference in Tehran on Sunday describing this event “as a big holiday for Iran”. “Finally, the Islamic Republic of Iran with the support of Russian specialists brought the plant’s construction to completion.”

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