Russia Sets Date for Iran to Go Nuclear

Russia will load fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant next week despite U.S. demands to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear energy until the country proves that it's not pursuing a weapons capacity, officials said Friday.

Uranium fuel shipped by Russia will be loaded into the Bushehr reactor on Aug. 21, beginning a startup process that will last about a month and end with the reactor sending electricity to Iranian cities, Russian and Iranian officials said.

"From that moment the Bushehr plant will be officially considered a nuclear-energy installation," said Sergei Novikov, a spokesman for the Russian nuclear agency, told The Associated Press.

Russia signed a $1 billion contract to build the Bushehr plant in 1995 but it has dragged its feet on completing the project.

Moscow has cited technical reasons for the delays, but analysts say Moscow has used the project to press Iran to ease its defiance over its nuclear program.