Russia is helping Iran build the plant at Bushehr, 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of the capital, Tehran. The NPP is being constructed under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog.
"Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Iran's vice president and head of the Atomic Energy Organization, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia's Federal Nuclear Power Agency, will continue talks on bilateral cooperation including on construction of Bushehr NPP on Tuesday, September 26," Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency, said.
Novikov added that the heads of the Russian and Iranian companies constructing the $1-billion plant would continue their joint work later in the day and would report to Kiriyenko and Aghazadeh on the results tomorrow.
On his way to Moscow, Aghazadeh said Monday he intended to propose Russia that some of the work on putting the power plant into operation should be carried out by Iranian specialists.
He also said that the implementation of this proposal would help to accelerate the procedure of putting the Bushehr NPP into operation and added that Iran was capable of finishing the construction on its own without Russia's help.
"Iranians can finish the construction of the Bushehr NPP on their own in the event the Russians fail to put it into operation," Aghazadeh told Iranian news agency Fars.
Last Monday, Kiriyenko told journalists on the sidelines of the 50th International Atomic Energy Agency General Conference in Vienna that the Bushehr NPP in southern Iran would be launched in November 2007.
"The Bushehr nuclear power plant will be commissioned in September 2007, and the power generating launch will take place in November 2007," Kiriyenko said.
Russia's nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, Atomstroiexport, is building Bushehr's first power unit under a $1 billion contract signed by Russia and Iran in 1995. A supplemental agreement signed in 1998 stipulates that Atomstroiexport will complete construction of the plant on the basis of a turnkey arrangement.
