Haaretz – Iran’s Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant will be fully operational within weeks, local news agencies quoted a senior Russian diplomat as saying on Thursday.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov spoke two days after the company that built the plant, a politically charged project that faced repeated delays, said the reactor had begun operating at a low level for tests before bringing it on line.

Ryabkov said that “the final launch of Bushehr is a matter of the coming weeks,” according to state-run news agency RIA, adding “this is a longstanding project and so I would refrain from naming concrete dates — but we are already on the threshold of the final launch of the reactor.”

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