Iran’s nuclear power plant undergoes emergency shutdown

AN official from the state electric company Tavanir, Gholamali Rakhshanimehr, stated this in a talk show on Sunday, that the Bushehr plant shutdwn began on Saturday.

  He further noted that it would last “for three to four days” without enough elaboration saying that power outages could result.

  Earlier, Tavanir released a statement saying that the Bushehr nuclear plant was being repaired, without offering further details pointing out that the repair work would take until Friday.

  It also revealed that in March, nuclear official Mahmoud Jafari said that the plant could stop working since Iran cannot procure parts and equipment for it from Russia due to banking sanctions imposed by the U.S. in 2018.

  Bushehr fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and was monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency thus the IAEA acknowledged being aware of the reports about the plant, but declined to comment.

  Also, the construction on the plant, on the coast of the northern reaches of the Persian Gulf, began under Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s.

  After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war which Russia later completed the construction of the facility.

  Meanwhile, the European Union on Sunday chaired the final meeting in Vienna of the sixth round of talks between Russia, China, Germany, France, Britain and Iran.

  The nations involved in the negotiations have been tried to resolve the major outstanding issues on how to return the U.S. into the landmark nuclear agreement, which then-President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of unilaterally in 2018.

  But report has it that Trump restored and augmented sanctions to try to force Tehran into renegotiating the pact with more concessions.

However, the meeting was the first since Iran’s hard-line judiciary chief won a landslide victory in the country’s presidential election last Friday.

 Some diplomats expressed concern that the election of Iran’s incoming President, Ebrahim Raisi could complicate a possible return to the nuclear agreement.