Asgar Jalalian, a member of the special Majlis committee dealing with the Bushehr project, blamed Russia for the continuing delays and accused it of being dishonest.
Jalalian said Iran has already paid Russia twice the planned cost and the Russians were demanding still more money.
The contract with the Russians has no “clear financial ceiling, timetable or end date,” he said. What’s more, he charged the Russians with reneging on the provision to transfer nuclear technology to Iran.
Jalalian gave no specific cost figures. Iranian and Russian officials said in 1995 that the contract provided for Iran to pay $800 million. A few years later, Russian officials said the contract was modified to provide for a total cost of $1.2 billion. No one on either side has since discussed the total cost, although Russian officials have often complained that Iran had not paid what it owed on time and the Russians have occasionally stopped work while waiting for payments.
As for the timetable, the original 1995 contract called for completion of all work in January 1999, meaning the four-year project is now more than 12 1/2 years overdue.
Several weeks ago, officials said the plant would join the national electrical grid in early August. Weeks later, that was changed to late August. Jalalian told the daily Aftab that date would not be met, but he gave no new forecast for the opening.
“We believe the Russians are not being honest about the plant,” Jalalian said. He urged the Iranian government to nail down the terms of the deal through “transparent and firm talks, without any ifs or buts.”
Russian officials have blamed Iran for most of the delays. The biggest problem, they have said is that Iran demanded that the Russians use the partially built plant put up by the German firm Kraftwerke Union before the revolution. The plant was said to be 80 percent complete when the revolution swept over Iran and the new regime canceled the Shah’s entire nuclear program, saying it was a wasteful “prestige” project.
When the Islamic Republic changed its mind, the German firm refused to resume work and Iran searched around for years looking for a new contractor before the Russians agreed to sign on.
The Russians wanted to start from scratch, saying it would be difficult and costly to fit a Russian reactor system into a building designed to hold a German reactor system. Critics said that was literally a matter of trying to put a square peg in a round hole.
Jalalian said the committee on which he serves has drafted a report on the nuclear power program and submitted it to the Majlis. He said he didn’t know when or if the report would be publicly discussed in the Majlis.
The Russian contractor, Rosatom, has so far declined to comment.