"From Mehr (September 22- October 21) this year the number of Russian experts at Bushehr power plant will decrease until we reach a number agreed by the two sides," Abbasi told reporters in Bushehr, reminding that Iran still needs the cooperation of Russian experts for operating the plant.
Stressing that Iran needs continued trainings by Russia for operating the plant, he stated, "Russians are yet to complete some tasks, and although the temporary control over the plant will be handed to Iran possibly by the end of the current Iranian year (March 2013), the permanent delivery to the Iranian side will take 3 years."
Igor Mezenin, local operation chief of the nuclear plant's Russian contractor, told RIA Novosti news agency earlier this month that the power unit at Bushehr would be handed over to Iran "in the last week of December".
Before that, Atomstroyexport, the Russian contractor, would conduct a serial of trails, Mezenin said.
The reactor of the plant's unit reached its full capacity on August 31.
Russia's state atomic agency Rosatom said in May that it was ready to help Iran build another unit at the Bushehr nuclear power plant.
Atomstroyexport, an engineering company of Rosatom, said Bushehr, the first nuclear power plant in Iran, successfully reached 90 percent of its nominal capacity in routine trials in early May.
Construction of the Bushehr plant began in 1975 by several German companies. However, work halted when the United States imposed an embargo on hi-tech supplies to Iran after the 1979 revolution.
Iran signed a deal with Russia in 1995, according to which the plant was originally scheduled for completion in 1999. However, the project was repeatedly delayed by the Russian side due to the intense pressure exerted on Moscow by the United States and its western allies. Russia finally completed physical construction of the plant last summer, but the facility still needed one more year to gradually reach full power generation capacity.
On October 26, 2010, Iran started injecting fuel into the core of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the initial phase of launching the nuclear reactor.
In 2011 Iran started using 500MW of nuclear-generated electricity, half the nominal capacity of the Bushehr power plant.
Iran held a ceremony in September to mark the preliminary launch of the Bushehr plant.
The facility operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
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Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Fereidoun Abbasi said the number of Russian experts at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant will decrease, but Iran will continue cooperation with Moscow until control of the plant is fully handed to Iran in the next three years.
News ID 182797
