2010-08-16 08:00

Bushehr, Iran - Russians will start loading a nuclear reactor with fuel in the southern city of Bushehr on Aug 21, Iranian media reported on Saturday.

The arrival of nuclear fuel at the Bushehr facility, 36 years after construction first began on the project, marked a key step toward its completion, Russian officials said, according to CNN.

Related readings:  Iran to continue nuclear enrichment for power plants  Iran to fuel nuclear power plant next week  Iran plans to send astronauts to space by 2017  Iran warns US against any military action

Russia's move came after the United States demanded to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear energy until it proved that it's not pursuing a weapons capacity.

The US has criticized Moscow for pushing ahead with the project, Reuters reported.

But Western countries' fears that the Bushehr project could be used to develop nuclear weapons were lessened when Moscow reached an agreement with Teheran obliging it to return spent fuel to Russia. Weapons-grade plutonium can be derived from spent fuel rods.

The US State Department said it did not regard Bushehr as a proliferation risk, but emphasized that broader concerns remained about the direction of Iran's nuclear program, Reuters reported.

Iran has announced that the site would create atomic energy peacefully, but it did not convince the US and other international observers.

The White House questioned Iran's need to enrich uranium within its borders.

"Russia is providing the fuel and taking the fuel back out," CNN quoted White House spokesman Robert Gibbs as saying. "It, quite clearly, I think, underscores that Iran does not need its own enrichment capability if its intentions, as it states, are for a peaceful nuclear program," Gibbs added.

A top Iranian lawmaker defended his nation's right to enrich uranium. Mohammad Esmail Kowsari, a member of Iran's Parliament (Majlis) National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, dismissed such remarks by US officials as "nonsense," saying the fuel produced inside Iran will be used in power plants which should be built in the future.

The completion of the Bushehr reactor has been postponed several times in the last 10 years. Construction began in 1975 by German companies including Siemens, however the project was suspended in 1980 due to the Iran-Iraq War.

German companies abandoned the project after a US-imposed boycott leaving room for Russia to step in, in 1994. Four years later Moscow signed a $1 billion deal with Teheran for the completion of the reactor. According to the original plan the reactor should have been ready by the end of 2006 but repeated delays prevented work from being finished, including Russian diplomatic pressure on Iran.