Iran to Build Second Nuclear Power Plant

By Rachelle Kliger

Iran has announced plans to build a second nuclear power plant in the country, a facility that is likely to be an additional headache for world powers trying to make Tehran abandon its nuclear program. Iran will build its second reactor with a view to constructing others, the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) Muhammad Saeedi said.

The new 360-megawatt nuclear power plant will be constructed in Darkhoin, in the southwestern Khuzestan province. Saeedi said preparations were underway, according to the official news agency IRNA. Tehran is currently building a 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr, on Iran's southern coast. The $800-million plant is being built under an agreement between the Iranian and Russian governments and is expected to be operational by the beginning of 2009. Its completion was delayed for several months because of disputes over payments.

The IAEO has assigned six local companies to hunt for sites to build additional nuclear power plants over the next 13 months. Iran has been under international pressure since 2002 to abandon its nuclear program for fear that it is covertly building a nuclear bomb. The oil-rich country insists the program is for the peaceful purpose of creating nuclear energy and upholds its right to possess nuclear technology.

Several sets of economic sanctions imposed on Iran have so far not yielded positive results, as far as the international community is concerned. The United States has implied that a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities cannot be ruled out, but analysts say this is unlikely to take place during the year of a presidential election. Iran's nuclear ambitions are also a source of concern for the surrounding Gulf countries, which are unhappy about the prospect of the Shi'ite country obtaining nuclear power.

"It's clear to us in the region that Iran is trying to gain an enhanced strategic position," Dr. Shafeeq Ghabra, a political scientist at Kuwait University, told The Media Line. The new power plant is seen as an indication of this strategy, he said, and it will make things harder for world powers to deal with Iran's nuclear policies.

"We fear the possibility of another war in the region. We see around us what's happening in Iraq and Afghanistan and we're not ready to live with another failed policy within the first six months of the [new U.S.] administration," Ghabra said. Besides the strategic concerns Gulf countries are also worried that any military standoff in the region could disrupt oil exports, especially since Iran has threatened any foreign attack on its nuclear installations would be met with the obstruction of strategic waterways in the Gulf by Iran. Gulf countries collectively hold about 62 percent of the world's oil reserves. The Gulf and the Strait of Hurmuz are the most important waterways for oil exports in the region and any obstruction there could cause a crisis in the global oil industry.

The Media Line News Agency

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