Of course, the contract for the plant, signed in 1995, said the plant would be completed early in 1999, so it is already more than 11 years overdue.
In recent months:
– The chief of the Russian firm building the plant said he never forecasts when anything will be completed.
– A few weeks later, the same Russian official promised that the plant would definitely be finished in 2010.
– Ali-Akbar Salehi, the head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, said the plant would be completed this spring-that is, by June 22.
– Putin has announced the plant will be completed in the summer.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was not overjoyed by Putin’s announcement. She hinted that the Russians should drag their feet some more, given the ongoing dispute with Iran over its uranium enrichment.
But contrary to what some news outlets reported, Clinton did not oppose the construction of the Bushehr power plant. That would have been a stunning policy reversal given that even President George W. Bush publicly supported the plant’s construction once Iran signed a contract with Russia to return the spent fuel from the plant to Russia. Spent fuel can be used to make bombs.
Clinton said, “We think it would be premature to go forward with any project at this time because we want to send an unequivocal message to the Iranians.” Some took that to be an appeal to the Russians to abandon the power plant.
But aides quickly said she was only saying that it was a bad idea to put the power plant into commission in the middle of a dispute over uranium enrichment. They said she was concerned that other nations would assume Russia now accepted Iran’s assertions that its nuclear program was peaceful.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Washington does not oppose the Bushehr power plant or Russia’s involvement in building it. The only concern is the timing of the announcement to launch the plant.
The Interfax news agency later quoted Vladimir Pavlov, an official of the Atomstroieksport firm handling construction, as saying trial runs would begin in April with plant launch planned for July.
