Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been targeted by the western imperialist states for regime change. The People's Republic of China has rejected calls for new sanctions in the United Nations Security Council.
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18:24 Mecca time, 15:24 GMT
Russia to start up Iran reactor
UN Security Council voted on sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme in June
Russia has announced it will begin loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week, a key step in launching the highly sensitive project after years of delays.
The power plant, built by Russia in the Iranian southern city of Bushehr, will be loaded with uranium-packed fuel rods after nearly 40 years of delays, a spokesman for Rosatom, the Russian atomic agency, said on Friday.
"The fuel will be charged in the reactor on August 21. From this moment, Bushehr will be considered a nuclear installation. This will be an irreversible step," Sergei Novikov told the AFP news agency.
Ali Akbar Salehi, the head Iran's atomic energy organisation, said: "We are preparing to transfer the fuel inside the plant next week ... Then we will need seven to eight days to transfer it to the core of the reactor."
IAEA inspectors
A ceremony inaugurating the plant will be held in late September or early October and inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN nuclear watchdog, will be invited, Salehi said.
Russia had agreed in 1995 to build the Bushehr plant on the site of a project begun in the 1970s by Siemens, a German firm, but delays have haunted the $1bn project amid the standoff over Iran's disputed nuclear enrichment programme.
Al Jazeera's Nazanin Moshiri, reporting from the Iranian capital, Tehran, said the undertaking of the project was "an important bargaining chip for the Russians and the West in negotiations with Iran over their nuclear program".
However, she added "the Americans have been urging the Russian not to complete it this year, until it was clear whether Iran had any intentions at all to build nuclear weapons.
"But it seems that the Russians have ignored the American plea."
'Premature' project
On a recent visit to Moscow in March, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, called Russia's decision to push ahead with the project "premature" at a time when major powers were pressing Tehran to allay fears that its nuclear energy programme may be aimed at developing weapons.
But Russia said the Bushehr plant is monitored by the IAEA and has no link with Iran's uranium enrichment programme.
In June, the UN Security Council approved a fourth round of military and financial sanctions against Iran over its nuclear programme, which included arms embargo, financial controls, asset ban on Iranian companies and a travel freeze on individuals.
Western countries continue to accuse Iran of seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon under the guise of its civilian nuclear programme.
Meanwhile, Tehran insisted the drive is entirely peaceful and that it needs nuclear energy for a rapidly expanding population whose fossil fuels will eventually run out.
If started, Bushehr will have an operating capacity of 1,000 megawatts.
Iran, the world's fifth oil producer, has said it wants to build a network of nuclear power plants with a capacity of 20,000 megawatts by 2020 to enable it to export more of its bountiful oil and gas.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
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