TEHRAN, Jan 28: Russia's security chief Igor Ivanov vowed to launch Iran's nuclear plant on schedule in September after talks in Tehran on Sunday with leaders of the Islamic republic.

“Russia is determined and serious in fulfilling its obligation to finish Bushehr plant on the scheduled date,” Ivanov was quoted as saying after meeting Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

In September 2006, Russia and Iran signed an agreement setting September 2007 as the deadline for the launch of the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power station which lies on the Gulf coast in southwestern Iran.

The plant will actually produce electricity from November, and the nuclear fuel for the plant is to be delivered no later than March.

Ivanov, the secretary of Russia's Security Council, also met President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran's national security chief and top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani.

Russia supports Iran's right to peaceful nuclear technology but voted for a UN Security Council resolution in December that imposes sanctions on Tehran over its repeated refusal to freeze uranium enrichment.

Iran gave conflicting signals about its nuclear work on Saturday with its atomic energy agency denying a statement by a senior MP that Tehran had started to install 3,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium.

The head of parliament's foreign affairs and national security commission, Alaeddin Borujerdi, said: “We are now installing the 3,000 centrifuges,”according to the official IRNA news agency.

But Hossein Cimorgh, public relations director of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organisation, told IRNA: “No new centrifuge machines have been installed in the Natanz facility”.

Uranium enrichment lies at the centre of fears about Iran's nuclear ambitions as the process can make the fissile core of an atom bomb as well as nuclear fuel.

Iran is already running two pilot cascades of 164-centrifuges each at a pilot site above-ground at its nuclear facility in Natanz, but the larger project would raise the work to an industrial scale.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is due to report to the UN Security Council by Feb 21 on whether Iran has suspended enrichment.

If not, sanctions could be tightened and there is increased speculation about a US or Israeli pre-emptive military attack to stop Iran's nuclear drive.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has criticised Washington for “hardline” policies and threats to bypass the United Nations in taking new measures against Iran's nuclear programme.

Unilateral measures “damage the joint work on Iran and our joint goal of getting Tehran to restart negotiations,” he said on Saturday.

Russia itself has been criticised by Washington for delivering TOR-M1 surface-to-air missile defence systems to Iran.—AFP