TEHRAN, Sept. 27 (UPI) -- The Russian nuclear plant being built in Bushehr, Iran, is on track to begin receiving Russian uranium next March, Russian officials said.
Sergei Shmatko, president of Russia's Atom Stroi Export Co., made the announcement Wednesday in Moscow after meeting with Iranian nuclear officials, Iran's state IRNA news agency reported.
Shmatko said construction was due to be completed by next September, with fuel shipments beginning in March, and the site becoming operational by November 2007.
The report said the initial shipment would be 163 uranium assemblies weighing about 80 tons.
Back in Tehran, the chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Ghoulam-Reza Aqazadeh, ruled out any links between ongoing international talks on the country's nuclear program and completion of the Bushehr plant, the report said.
Iran has refused to stop uranium enrichment as a condition for restarting talks on an incentives package aimed at more monitoring of its atomic activities.
