Wednesday`s explosion in the southern Iranian province of Bushehr has not affected the work of Russian specialists who are building a nuclear power plant in this region.

"Russian specialists and the plant itself were not affected by the explosion," an official at the personnel department of
Atomstroiexport, the project general contractor, told Itar-Tass. "Ten minutes ago we telephoned Bushehr, and all 1,500 of our specialists are safe and sound, and the construction is going on according to schedule," he said.

He said the construction site and the residential complex were located about 100 kilometers from the scene of the explosion. "Increased security is a permanent feature in the area of construction," the official said, adding, "The explosion will not affect the upcoming visit to Iran by the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Atomic Energy, Alexander Rumyantsev."

Rumyantsev`s trip to Iran was scheduled for February 25-27. He will visit the nuclear power plant in Bushehr, as well as will meet with Vice President Gholam Reza Aqazadeh, who is also the head of the national Nuclear Energy Organization, Federal Agency for Atomic Energy spokesman Nikolai Shingarev told Itar-Tass.

"An additional protocol on the return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia is expected to be signed in Tehran as well," the spokesman added.

A senior Iranian government official said the explosion in Bushehr had been made during dam-building operations.

According to the results of the investigation and information provided by the Bushehr governor, "The explosion that occurred in the Dailam region was the result of detonating a path for dam-building operations," a member of Iran`s Supreme National Security Council, Ali Agha Mohammadi, said.

Iranian sources said that the Arab-language television channel Al Alam had not released any reports on a missile attack in the province. Earlier, Al Alam quoted witnesses as saying that the missile hit the ground and exploded about 20 kilometers from Dailam. It also claimed that Iran`s air defense systems had fired at the plane. But an official in the Dailam mayor`s office denied reports about a missile attack.

Mehr News quoted him as saying that no one in Dailam had heard the noise of a plane. He made an assumption that it might have been an explosion at an oil plant near the city.

A representative of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps also denied these assertions. He said Al Alam`s report about an explosion was wrong.

The military official said no missile had been fired at the city, and no plane fuel tank had fallen off. "We deny that," he said. An official in the Iranian Interior Ministry told journalists that `there was no hostile attack`. In his view, this might have been `an incident` not connected with an aggressive foreign action. A Russian diplomat in Tehran said the explosion in Bushehr had nothing to do with the nuclear power plant that is under construction there. In his words, everything is calm at the construction site, and no incidents have occurred.

The Federal Agency for Atomic Energy official said that the construction of the power plant in Bushehr was `fully in line with the norms and rules of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and nuclear fuel for the reactor in Bushehr will be supplied to Iran only after Tehran has signed the protocol on the obligatory return of spent nuclear fuel to Russia for storage and processing`.

According to the Russian-Iranian inter-governmental agreement, Russia should begin nuclear fuel supplies to Iran months before the physical commissioning of the reactor.

Its construction is to be completed at the beginning of 2006. The Federal Agency for Atomic Energy believes that the
commissioning of the Bushehr nuclear power plant `will not bring Iran closer to the creation of nuclear weapons`.

"In the course of the VVER-1000 reactor`s work, plutonium does accumulate in the loaded nuclear fuel, but its amount is relatively small (less than one percent), and it is practically unfit by its isotope composition for use in the production of nuclear weapons," the official said.

"Moreover, removing plutonium from the nuclear fuel that is working in the reactor is a very complex technological task that will require a lot of time and tremendous financial expenditures. It is an even more challenging task to make a nuclear weapon from it. Theoretically this can be done, but so far no country has chosen this path and it is unlikely that any will because there are simpler ways to make nuclear weapons," the spokesman said.

Russia and Iran signed the about one billion US dollar agreement on the construction of power unit No. 1 at Bushehr in 1995. The reactor will be able to generate 1,000 megawatt of electricity an hour.