TEHRAN (Iran News) – The shutdown of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant in Iran is impossible, Tehran continues to cooperate with Moscow on the construction of second and third power units of the plant, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister said.

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“The emerged stand-still in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) is being resolved,” Ali-Akbar Salehi said in an interview with a number of journalists at the social network Club House on Friday.

“Now the talks on the nuclear deal have entered the technical phase, having left behind the initial controversial debates, which means resolving of the former halt, which is promising,” he added.

“It has been agreed that as of next week technical talks will begin in Vienna, after which the pivotal issue of the legal and political aspects of the JCPOA will be dealt with,” Salehi said, adding that the ground was paved for entering the political and legal aspects of the job.

“Presently we have taken a number of steps forward, since the unjustifiable discussion that they had initially started, or we had started, is now left behind, and this is very promising,” said the AEOI chief.

“When we will enter the technical talks phase, it means that the issue is being governed and so that ‘after you; no you first’ discussion is being left behind,” he said.

Salehi said that some people inside the country (and even abroad) argue that why at all we need nuclear energy. “But if we study the history of the nuclear technology before the revolution, we will notice that at that time Iran was advised to have its first nuclear plant, such as the Bushehr facilities, in 20 to 30 years and that suggestion was not only for the economic concerns but also for the country’s need to have a reliable energy basket.

“The nuclear discussions have unfortunately been strongly politicized and everyone views it as a political, rather than scientific issue. That is while currently, 400 nuclear reactors are active around the globe, producing 390 gigabytes of electricity,” said the AEOI chief.

He added that 109 more nuclear plants are being designed and 329 other nuclear reactors are proposed to be designed; “Therefore, the world is moving towards that direction. China is currently constructing 47 nuclear power plants and dozens of other reactors and Canada has said that by the year 2050 they need to have increased their nuclear products.

The entire budget allocated to the nuclear industry during the past 30 years has been 7 billion dollars, that equals annually 230 million dollars, while 230 million dollars of it was spent for the Bushehr Nuclear Plant, which is worth five billion dollars now,” said Salehi.

He said that the added value in Bushehr Nuclear Plant (BNP) equals 600 million dollars of electricity exports, which means the BNP can in ten years earn the money spent for it, while its life-span is 60 years.

“Our challenge with the West, too, was not initially of nuclear nature, but it has started since the Revolution. Mr. Antony Blinken has said that China is the main US enemy and his analysis was that China is creating a disturbance in the world order that the Americans had established after World War II,” said the chief.

The Americans must have achieved a new level of intelligence, as they have realized that the greater the pressure they will impose against Iran, our country will get stronger, said Salehi, adding: Friends and enemies are confessing that if the great pressure imposed against Iran during the past decades at the international scene was levied against any other country it could not have resisted.

“God knows that Iran has got stronger at the international scene for sure. Iran is the golden key for the region, and if they want to open any lock in the region the key to it is in Iran,” he added.

The AEOI chief said that the nuclear talks are not being pursued with the American side, as they are in the framework of the G5+1, while the AEOI, that is in charge of observing the NPT, is not present in the negotiations, and the Iranian diplomats are representing it, as well.

He meanwhile criticized those who weakened the JCPOA inside the country till it became useless, asking “Why? What did they shoot at our own feet, and propagated harmoniously with Israel?” He said.

Nuclear energy is important for Iran both from the economic point of the view, and from the strength aspect… The Americans were arguing that Iran is blotting about the production of the 20% enriched fuel, but we noticed that Iran produced it, and the Americans were surprised.

Salehi said that despite Iran’s debts to Russia, they are still cooperating with the Iranian nuclear program and are committed to their agreements.

Elsewhere, he said that the production of 20% enriched uranium has reached 50 kg.

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