国际英语新闻：Iran rejects claims of likely delays in joining Bushehr nuclear plant to national power grid

TEHRAN, Jan. 3 (Xinhua) -- Iran's interim Foreign Minister Ali- Akbar Salehi rejected claims that the launch of Iran's first nuclear power plant in Bushehr would be delayed again and the plant's connection to national power grid will be postponed one more time, the state IRIB TV website reported on Monday.

Salehi, also Head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said Sunday night that "all the rumors related to the westerners' claims that Stuxnet (cyber worm) has caused damage (to the nuclear plant) are rejected," the report said.

As it had already been announced, everything with Bushehr nuclear power plant is progressing well, Salehi said.

"We hope in the mid-February ... one or two weeks earlier or later ... the nuclear power plant could join the national power grid," he was quoted as saying.

Earlier, the Iranian Foreign Ministry denied reports that a cyber worm had damaged computer systems at the country's nuclear power plant and said that the Stuxnet computer worm that had hit the personal computers of the staff at the plant had been cleaned up.

Russia signed an agreement worth one billion U.S. dollars in 1995 to take over the project. Its completion, first scheduled for 1999, was postponed several times by mounting technological and financial challenges and interruptions under pressures from the United States.