Iran set to carry on nuclear cooperation with Russia

Iran is not going to terminate cooperation with Russia in the nuclear area, Hossein Afaride, chairman of the parliamentary energy commission in the Iranian majlis, has said in an exclusive RIA Novosti interview.

"The factory being built near Natanz will produce fuel for nuclear power stations", he said.

This does not mean Iran will reject Russian fuel supplies for the first stage of the Bushehr facility, designed to generate 1,000 megawatts, said Hossein Afaride.

"We need fuel and will get it from Russia, but we want to produce nuclear fuel on our own", he said.

"We hope for help from Russia, the International Atomic Energy Agency and other producers of nuclear fuel. We have ambitious plans, which pursue no military ends whatever", stressed the chairman of the energy commission. The Iranian peaceful nuclear program envisages generation of additional 6,000 megawatts, i.e. construction of other nuclear power stations.

The MP disproved the United States' accusations that Iran allegedly plans to build in Natanz a plant for the beneficiation of uranium to be used for military ends and recalled that the IAEA had officially declared that the American claims to Iran were groundless.