Iran to offer int'l tender for nuclear power plants

An Iranian nuclear official said Saturday that Iran has decided to offer an international tender for the construction of two new nuclear power plants in the near future, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.

Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization, announced the decision in London in a speech at a conference of the World Nuclear Association, which ended Saturday, the report said.

"In the near future, Iran will officially announce an international tender for the construction of two nuclear power plants and, taking all technical requirements as well as security guarantees into consideration, will definitely choose the most qualified companies," Saeedi was quoted as saying.

Meanwhile, Saeedi elaborated on Iran's capability to produce various kinds of uranium products and the country's efforts to master the complete nuclear fuel cycle.

The European Union is pressing Iran to abandon its fuel cycle program to provide guarantees that its nuclear research will not be used for military purposes.

Saeedi briefed the participants on other facts of Iran's nuclear status quo and its plan to produce 20,000 megawatts of electrical power from nuclear energy in the next 20 years.

Iran's first nuclear power plant is being constructed with Russia's aid in the southern coastal province of Bushehr.

Tehran has been accused by the United States of developing nuclear weapons secretly, but it has categorically rejected the charge and said that it will never give up its legal rights for peaceful nuclear technology.

The World Nuclear Association, a global industrial organizationbased in London, seeks to promote peaceful use of nuclear power worldwide as a sustainable energy resource for the coming centuries. Enditem

Source: Xinhua