IRAN: More nuclear juice

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Six shipments down and just two more to go before all 82 tons of Russian nuclear fuel to fire up the light-water reactor in the southern Iranian city of Bushehr are delivered.

Number six arrived Thursday morning, according to Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency.

Iran’s Atomic Energy Production and Development Co. said the the 11-ton Russian shipment has already been sent down to Bushehr, a Persian Gulf port city once known mostly for its lively music and traditional architecture instead of as the site of the Muslim Middle East’s first atomic reactor.

So far, 66 tons of fuel for the first stage of firing up the nuclear power plant have been sent.

The power reactor cannot directly produce any material for nuclear weapons, and arms control experts are far more concerned about Iran’s uranium enrichment activity in the city of Natanz. But Western officials worry that the Iranians can reprocess spent fuel rods to obtain weapons-grade plutonium. Russia, which is building the power plant, promises it will account for and bring back home all the fuel.

Moscow has been sending the fuel pretty quickly. The first shipment arrived Dec. 17. The remaining two shipments are to be sent by mid-February. Iranians say the plant will be operational by the end of 2008.

— Borzou Daragahi in Beirut

Video: Inside a historically significant mansion in Bushehr, Iranian musicians play the traditional folk music of the Persian Gulf port city, which is the site of a Russian-built and fueled nuclear power plant.