Russia loyal to commitments to build reactor for Iran

Tehran, Oct 31, IRNA – Russian Ambassador to Tehran Levan Dzhagaryan says Russia sticks to its commitment to build reactor for Iran based on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Dzhagaryan told IRNA that preliminaries are underway and Russian experts are in Iran as reactors are getting designed. Russia is to build two nuclear reactors for Iran in Bushehr and the ground was broken in September to build the second unit of Bushehr nuclear power plant in presence of First Vice-President Es'haq Jahangiri and head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali-Akbar Salehi and then head of Rosatom. Commenting on Chinese commitment to build nuclear reactors for Iran, he said, 'As far as I know, the Chinese companies are involved in the small- and medium-sized reactors. So that they are no longer our rival. At the same time, the Chinese contractors are our and Iran's friends.' As for Moscow commitments, he said Iranian and Russian nuclear experts and technicians are frequenting between Tehran and Moscow to carry out the project. He noted that since last year, 2015, the project is at the executive phase and Russians abide by their commitment and there is no difficulty. 'It's a pleasure that recently, the S300 issue has been worked out and remarkable progress has been observed in cooperation on nuclear energy.' As for Americans' procrastination in connection with the JCPOA, he said, 'We do know that Iran has made complaints against the US; Americans declined to abide by their JCPOA commitments; we do understand well the concerns of our Iranian friends.' He said banking cooperation is not as expected and SWIFT is not in effect. He also pointed to a case of Americans' refusal to abide by their commitments to cooperate with Russia in connection with Syria and said, 'Americans do not believe in their own promise and it seems a little a bit suspicious. This does not mean that we should not work with them (Americans). We should work and cooperate with them so that they would fulfill their commitments.' He said that Russia has been adhering to its commitments towards Iran. As for Russian stance on liberation operations in Mosul of Iraq, he said, 'Naturally, Mosul liberation will be good for us. However, our concern is that Americans would let and encourage terrorists to move towards Syria from Mosul. We have warned Americans and westerners not to create extra problems for (Syrian President) Bashar Assad.' He said Assad is the legal president of Syria and his fate should be decided by Syrian people without any foreign intervention. He said that Russian officials will visit Tehran in the near future. He did not elaborate on names of the officials. 1378/IRNA