Iran starts fueling nuclear plant

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Iran announced today that it’s begun fueling the reactor core at the Bushehr nuclear plant, the country’s first nuclear facility. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports on why Iran is calling the fueling a ‘victory over the West.’ Download MP3

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LISA MULLINS: Washington once considered Iraq a major threat. It cited fears that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That turned out to be wrong. Now there are questions about Iran’s nuclear intentions. Today, Iran announced that it’s begun fueling the reactor core of its first nuclear power plant. Tehran says if all goes according to schedule, it’ll start producing electricity at its Bushehr plant early next year. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports.

GERRY HADDEN:  Iranian state television today showed images of a long mechanical arm lowering what authorities say are nuclear fuel rods into the nuclear reactor’s core. Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said there’d been delays but the project was now moving forward.

SPEAKING PERSIAN

HADDEN: Times and dates have been approximate, he said.  In any case, you can see the process of bringing the plant online has begun. We are making the power plant operational, and the fueling of the core demonstrates that. Tehran called the fueling of the plant a victory over the West. And one of the Iranian government’s staunchest enemies says it’s a troubling development. Mohamma Mohaddessin chairs an Iranian Exile Group in Belgium.

MOHAMMA MOHADDESSIN: Nobody can trust an Iranian regime running Bushehr, and helping the Iranian regime to have Bushehr nuclear facilities is a very big mistake by the Western governments. I think comprehensive sanctions against the Iranian regime is the only way to create an obstacle to the Iranian regime ambition having nuclear weapons.

HADDEN: Iran is under four sets of United Nations sanctions for another nuclear program, its uranium enrichment activities. The United States and its allies accuse Tehran of seeking to build a nuclear weapon.  They want the uranium enrichment to stop. Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. But the fueling of the Bushehr plant has provoked little reaction so far today. That’s because the Russian-built Bushehr isn’t part of Iran’s controversial nuclear projects, says Mark Fitzpatrick, a non proliferation expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

MARK FITZPATRICK: Its purpose is to produce electricity for Iran’s grid. So there is some misplaced level of anxiety over the fueling of the plant. What it does demonstrate however, is that the fuel for this plant is coming from Russia. So I think it raises the question, why is Iran producing low enriched uranium of its own if it gets the fuel from Russia?

HADDEN: Iran says it plans to open more nuclear power plants down the road. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said today the US has no problems with the Bushehr plant. What it does object to, she said, is the other nuclear facilities, where the US believes Iran is secretly conducting a weapons program. For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden.

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