Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said talks with Russia over the much delayed completion of Iran's first nuclear power station are making progress, the official IRNA news agency reported on Sunday.
"The question of the Bushehr nuclear power station was raised and we see progress in the negotiations," said Mottaki, referring to his visit last week to Moscow for talks on the atomic plant with Russian officials.
Russia, which is building the power plant in the southern Iranian city, has warned it will not be completed until 2008 at the earliest owing to a series of delays attributed by the Russians to late Iranian payments.
Sergei Shmatko, chief of Russia's Atomstroiexport company which is constructing Bushehr, said after his meeting with Mottaki in Moscow that "negotiations continue and they are held in constructive manner."
Mottaki also said the nuclear fuel that Moscow is contracted to deliver for the plant was ready.
Russia had already announced in 2005 that the fuel had been produced and was stored in a Russian plant. "The fuel is ready and it has been inspected and sealed by the International Atomic Energy Agency," Mottaki said.
The plant is a cornerstone of Iran's controversial nuclear programme, which Tehran insists is solely aimed at providing electricity for a growing population but which the United States says masks an atomic weapons drive.
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