FNA- Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi announced that construction of two new nuclear power plants in the country will start in the near future.

"We have inked contracts for building two (nuclear) power plants," Salehi said, addressing the AEOI personnel and managers in Tehran on Saturday.

"We paid the first installment of $185mln (for building the power plants) last December and God willing, the construction works will also start soon," he added.

In relevant remarks last August, Salehi announced the country's plans to build two new nuclear powers plants.

"The executive operations to build two new nuclear power plants will start at the president's order," Salehi told reporters in Tehran at the time.

He added that a sum of $10bln of investment has been considered for the construction of the two power plants.

Also, last April, Salehi announced the country's plans to build two small 100-MW nuclear powers plants in the near future.

"We are considering construction of 2 small 100-MW power plants," Salehi said, addressing AEOI officials and personnel in Tehran.

He also elaborated on the reason for the delay in the start of the construction of the second nuclear power plant in Bushehr, and said based on the contract with Russia, the construction work should have started in the past Iranian year (ended on March 19) but due to some technical problems and differences on features, Tehran and Moscow will kick off the work after reaching shared viewpoints.