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Iran Begins to Test First Atomic Reactor Despite Western Fears over Nuclear Weapons
[Telegraph-UK] Miriam Elder - Iranians insist that the $1 billion Russian-built plant in Bushehr is part of a civilian energy program, but Western powers fear that its covert purpose is to produce atomic weapons. Start-up tests were carried out on Wednesday by Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of Rosatom, Russia's state-owned nuclear firm which built the plant. "The construction stage of the nuclear power plant is over, we are now in the pre-commissioning stage," Kiriyenko said. He was accompanied by Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, who announced a nearly ten-fold expansion of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity in the next five years. He also said 6,000 centrifuges were now enriching uranium, an increase of 1,000 since November.