Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Power, said Russia had shown an example of "a complex solution for the problem of peaceful development of the nuclear energy industry," referring to the international dispute over Iran's nuclear program.
Kiriyenko said the Iranian example involved, first and foremost, the establishment of a Russian-Iranian joint venture for uranium enrichment on the Russian territory and the return of spent nuclear fuel from Iran to Russia.
"With the resolution of these two issues, the operation of the Bushehr nuclear power plant [NPP] becomes completely safe," he said, adding that the construction of the NPP in Iran was going according to schedule and that no political decisions had yet been made in that respect.
The head of the agency also said that many countries had been trying to gain access to cheap nuclear energy in the wake of sharp increases in fuel prices.
Khristenko added that the second round of nuclear talks between Iran and Russia had been scheduled for February 16 and that he planned to make a working visit to Iran at the end of February.
