The second lot of Russian nuclear fuel for the Bushehr power plant was delivered to Iran on Friday, Deputy Head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Ahmad Fayazbakhsh reported here on the same day, according to Itar-Tass. "The second load of nuclear fuel for the Bushehr plant was delivered to Iran exactly on schedule," the IRNA News Service quotes him as saying. The weight of the said lot is the same as that of the previous one, Fayazbakhsh specified. The first lot of nuclear fuel was delivered from Novosibirsk to the construction site of the station on December 16. Tehran had acclaimed this, stressing that such deliveries would contribute "to the promotion of the strategic relations between Iran and Russia". Spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry Mohammad Ali Hosseini declared at the same time that deliveries of Russian fuel would not prevent Iran's determination to independently enrich uranium on its own territory. The fuel, produced at the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Centre, which is in Central Iran, is intended for other Iranian nuclear power plants, which are to be built in the country within the next 20 years in accordance with its development plan," he added.
