Tehran gives green light for another nuclear station

The oil-rich southern province of Khuzestan will have a new power station. And a station in the Gulf, constructed with Russian help, is nearly operational. Moscow is selling Tehran missiles worth 500 million US dollars.

Tehran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – The Iranian government has decided to build a nuclear station in the oil-rich south-west province of Khuzestan. On Sunday, local television stated that "the cabinet in its meeting this afternoon agreed to construct an atomic power station in Khuzestan using local technology". They did not say when construction works would start.

Meanwhile, Iran has almost completed its nuclear power station in Bushehr port on the shores of the Gulf: built with Russian help, this involves a contract worth 800 million US dollars. Tehran hopes the 1000MW project – started by the United States in the early seventies – will be operational by next year.

The Islamic Republic wants to construct other stations: some government officials say the government wants to have 6,000MW of energy by 2020; others say it wants to build 20 nuclear stations.

Washington accuses Tehran of wanting to produce nuclear energy for use in warheads. But Iran insists its nuclear developments are aimed only at meeting an swiftly growing demand for electricity, and it maintains it has the right to use uranium for this purpose, extracted from mines in deserts situated in the centre of the country.

Many nations are putting pressure on the Islamic Republic's leaders to enrich its uranium in Russia, thereby guaranteeing that it will be enriched only to the low level required for the production of energy, without pressing ahead to a higher level to produce arms. Meanwhile Russia – pinpointed by some as warrantor of Iran's atomic ambitions – has signed a contract worth around 500 million US dollars to supply air missiles to Tehran.

The TOR M1 anti-aircraft complex is a conventional missile system and is not banned by any international treaty. It is thought that Russia has agreed to sell Tehran more than two dozen such systems.

Russia's Defence Minister, Sergei Ivanov, announced that the weapons would not alter the balance of forces in the Middle East.

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