TEHRAN, Feb 22: The long-delayed preliminary phase of operations for Iran’s first nuclear power plant would begin on Wednesday, the state atomic energy agency said on Sunday.

However, a nuclear official in Russia, which is helping build the plant, says no major milestone is expected on Wednesday.

“The pilot stage operation of the power plant will start on Wednesday,” Iranian atomic agency spokesman Mohsen Delaviz told the state news agency.

He added the preliminary phase would take place during a visit by Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Russia’s state nuclear agency.

The long-awaited 1,000MW light-water reactor, which was built in the southern Iranian port of Bushehr with the help of Russia under a $1 billion contract, was previously scheduled to become operational in fall of 2008. Some 700 Iranian engineers were trained in Russia to operate the power plant.

Rosatom spokesman Sergei Novikov, however, said no major milestone in the preparations for Bushehr’s start-up is expected during Kiriyenko’s visit.

Novikov said that Rosatom expected it to be “just a working visit” and that as before, the reactor’s physical start-up was expected by the end of the year. “Everything is on schedule,” he told The Associated Press.

“It is a regular meeting on the site, with Russians and the Iranian organisations which are working on the project,” Novikov said of Wednesday’s event.

He said he could not be more specific about when the reactor could be switched on, citing uncertainty about the process of integrating what has been built recently and the existing facilities at the site.

Novikov said it was possible the “pilot stage operation” mentioned by Delaviz could refer to the point when the plant begins to generate electricity for its own limited use during the “pre-commissioning” period, which he said was already under way. This generation normally occurs a few months before the reactor’s start-up, he said.

The plant dates backs to 1974, when Iran signed an agreement to build the reactor with the German company Siemens, which withdrew from the project after the 1979 revolution toppled the pro-Western Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

In 1992, Iran signed an agreement with Russia to complete the project and work began on it in 1995. The reactor was supposed to be completed by 1999 but has been plagued by delays.

The US has long opposed the deal, citing concerns that it could help Tehran develop nuclear weapons, but it softened its position after Iran agreed to return the spent nuclear fuel from the reactor to Russia — a measure aimed at ensuring it didn’t extract plutonium to make atomic bombs.

Russia says there is no evidence that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons and has joined China in weakening Western-backed sanctions in the UN Security Council, arguing that punishing Tehran too harshly for its nuclear activities would be counterproductive.—AP