Almost all Russian engineers consulting Iranian colleagues at the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant will complete their work in the coming months, the Atomic Energy Organization of Irans (AEOI) spokesman said Saturday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) The Iranian National Regulatory Authority (INRA) issued a five-year license forBushehrs unit 1 afterexhausting all related legal technical inspections and the necessary control, Behrouz Kamalvandi said inan AEOIs statement.
Kamalvandi added the fewer than60 Russian advisers working atthe site would be reduced inthe "coming months."
He noted that the reduction was part ofRussian nuclear corporation Rosatoms handover ofBushehr inSeptember 2013 that saw a three-year period, inwhich the remaining Russian engineers would provide consulting services. At the time, there were 270 Russian engineers atBushehr.
The AEOI spokesman stressed the "utmost importance" ofattaining the license forboth Rosatom asthe contractor and the Iran Nuclear Power Production-Development (NPPD) company asthe operator.
The Russian-Iranian agreement onthe civil use ofnuclear energy, followed bya deal toconstruct Iran's first nuclear power plant, dates from1992. The Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant started operating inIran in2011 and reached full capacity the followingyear.
An agreement toexpand civilian nuclear energy cooperation and construct a total ofeight additional nuclear reactors atBushehr was signed betweenthe sides onNovember 11, 2014.
On Friday, Rosatoms press service announced full-scale construction of Bushehr-2 and Bushehr-3 assoon asthe technical aspects were resolved withinthe next weeks.
By Sputnik