"From our point of view, we can complete the power station within six months," Aghazadeh told the semi-offical Mehr news agency, denying reports of an agreement with Russia for a November 2007 completion date.

The Iranian envoy launched a strong attack on the competence of Russian contractor Atomstroyexport which is building the power plant but said Iran would continue to work with it for the time being.

Before the Moscow talks began, Iranian officials said that the meetings were aimed at finalizing plans for the delivery of nuclear fuel and the startup of the Bushehr plant.

"We are going to discuss ways to remove existing obstacles by quickly completing the Bushehr atomic plant and also we are going to agree the time of inauguration and sending the fuel," Aghazadeh's deputy, Mohammad Saeedi, told Iran's official IRNA news agency.

Saeedi complained that Russia had not followed through on commitments made last year on schedules for delivery of nuclear fuel, fuel that must be shipped and installed around six months before the plant can go on stream.

Although Russia had a longstanding contract worth an estimated one billion dollars to build the Bushehr reactor, it has been under heavy US-led pressure to suspend or slow its cooperation with the Islamic republic, which Washington accuses of trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability.

Iran has consistently denied the US charges, saying that its nuclear programme is solely for civilian energy purposes, a right it says is enshrined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for Russia's atomic energy agency, said last week that the Bushehr plant should be completed in September 2007 and would begin producing energy two months after that.

"Russia can deliver nuclear fuel to Iran next March, six months before the launching of the station," Novikov said.

A Russian spokesman said Aghazadeh would hold further talks with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Kiriyenko, Tuesday.

The United States has been leading calls at the United Nations for the Security Council to take enforcement action against Iran after it failed to heed an end of August deadline to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can produce fuel for reactors or, in extended form, the core of an atom bomb.

Russia and China, both of which have major economic interests in Iran, have rebuffed the US pressure, and France too has demanded that more talks be held to provide the assurances being sought by the international community that the Islamic republic's nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes only.

In an effort to assuage Western concerns, Russia early last year secured Iran's agreement to an amendment of the Bushehr deal requiring that all spent nuclear fuel from the reactor be returned to Russia for reprocessing.

related report
Iran And Russia To resume talks on Bushehr NPP
Moscow (RIAN) Sep 25 - The nuclear power chiefs of Russia and Iran have agreed to continue talks Tuesday on bilateral cooperation, including on a controversial nuclear power plant Russia is helping to build in the Islamic Republic.

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.

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