Iran Building Second Nuclear Plant, Says Top Iranian Official

[Purveyor]

A senior Iranian atomic official said Sunday that Iran has chosen the site for and started designing a new 360 megawatt nuclear power plant.

Iran has yet to complete construction of its first nuclear power plant and has previously sent conflicting signals about the state of work on a planned second plant. An Iranian official said this year construction work had already begun.

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"We are involved in the design phase of this power station," the deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation, Mohammad Saeedi, said, referring to plans for a second plant to be built in the area of Darkhovin in southwest Iran.

"Gradually the complementary design phase and its building will begin," Saeedi said of the 360 megawatt plant, in comments carried by the official IRNA news agency.

"The site has been chosen and the preparation process is under way," he added.

The country's first nuclear power plant, with 1,000 megawatt capacity, is being built by Russia in the port city of Bushehr. Iran has said it wants to build nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 20,000 megawatt by 2020.

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REUTERS: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1014751.html