Iran says atom plant set for launch after final test

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran’s first nuclear power plant is set to be launched by late September now that an important final test has been carried out at the reactor, said head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi.

Ali Akbar Salehi's statement, at the site near the Gulf port city of Bushehr, suggested that a row that erupted between Moscow and Tehran in May over new U.N. sanctions against Iran had caused no further delays to the project.

"We reached the point of no return and the ground is paved for the reactor to go on stream," the official IRNA news agency quoted Salehi as saying, adding the start-up would take place during the Iranian month, which begins on August 23.

He said warm-water tests had been conducted on the facility, adding they were "the last and some of the most important tests before going on stream," Reuters reported.