Associated Press

BUSHEHR, Iran — Trucks rumbled into Iran’s first nuclear reactor Saturday to begin loading tons of uranium fuel. It was a long-delayed startup touted by officials as both a symbol of the country’s peaceful intentions to produce electricity, as well as a triumph over Western pressure to rein in its nuclear program.

The Russian-built power plant will be supervised internationally. Russia has pledged to safeguard against nuclear materials being diverted for possible use in creating weapons. Iran’s agreement to allow the oversight was a rare compromise on the nuclear program.

Western powers have accepted the deal cautiously as a way to control spent nuclear fuel in Iran. They say it illustrates their primary goal is to block Iran from creating material that could be used for nuclear weapons.

Iran has long declared it has a right, like any other nation, to produce nuclear energy.

Its nuclear chief described the startup as a “symbol of Iranian resistance and patience. ... Despite all pressure, sanctions and hardships imposed by Western nations, we are now witnessing the startup of the largest symbol of Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities,” Ali Akbar Salehi told reporters inside the plant in southern Iran.

In several significant ways, the Bushehr station stands apart from the showdowns over Iranian uranium enrichment, a process that can be used both to produce nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. It also could offer a test run for proposals to ease the impasse.

The Russian agreement to control the supply of nuclear fuel at Bushehr eased opposition. Bushehr’s operations are not covered by U.N. sanctions imposed after Iran refused to stop uranium enrichment. Recently, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Russian oversight at Bushehr is the “very model” offered Tehran last year under a U.N.-drafted plan. So far snubbed by Iran, it called for Iran to halt uranium enrichment and import reactor-ready fuel.

Western leaders fear Iran’s enrichment labs could one day churn out weapons-grade products. Iran claims it has no interest in nuclear arms, but refuses to give up the right to make nuclear fuel.

Iran has some of the world’s biggest oil reserves, but it lacks refinery capacity to meet domestic demand. It purchases petroleum-based fuel in international markets. Nuclear power is seen as both a goal to meet power needs and an important technological achievement for Iran. The French Foreign Ministry said the Russian deal shows Iran does not need to enrich uranium to benefit from nuclear power. Continued...

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“This clearly shows that the sanctions do not aim to deprive Iran of its right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses,” the French said.

In London, a Foreign Office junior minister, Alistair Burt, said the Bushehr plant “demonstrates that Iran can have the benefits of nuclear power.”

After years of delays in completing the plant, Moscow says the project is essential to persuading Iran to cooperate with international efforts to stop it from developing a bomb.

Iran has said that monitors from the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, will have access to the fuel shipments at Bushehr, about 745 miles south of Tehran. Spent fuel contains plutonium, which can be used to make atomic weapons.

U.N. nuclear inspectors were on hand Saturday as the first truckloads of fuel were taken to a “pool” inside the reactor. Over the next two weeks, 80 tons of uranium fuel — will be moved inside the building and then into the reactor core.

It will be another two months before the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor — heavily guarded by soldiers — is pumping electricity to Iranian cities.

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