Russia and Iran to build new nuclear reactors on Iranian territory
On the 10th of September 2016, Iran and Russia will begin the construction of two new nuclear reactors at the existing Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant, as stated by the Iranian Vice President, the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, on Thursday, September 1, 2016. The construction will continue for ten years. The cost of the project with the participation of the Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation will be about $10 billion. These power units will help Iran save 22 million barrels of oil per year, the official said.
Russia and Iran signed an agreement to build the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in 1992. The first unit of the power plant was delivered in 2013 and reached full capacity in 2015. According to the Memorandum of Understanding on expanding cooperation in the nuclear sphere, signed in November 2014, Russia will build four power units at Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant and another four at another site. Moscow will supply nuclear fuel and take nuclear waste for reprocessing and storage.
In 2015, the Iranian Parliament ratified the agreement with international mediators on the nuclear program after Iran and six negotiators in Vienna reached an historical agreement on the settlement of the dispute over Tehran's nuclear program. According to the agreement, Iran must impose significant restrictions on its nuclear program for at least ten years.
On the 1st of September 2016, it became known that the U.S. and its international partners in nuclear talks with Iran allegedly secretly agreed to allow Tehran to evade compliance with certain restrictions in a nuclear agreement to sign it in on time in order to start lifting economic sanctions.