Iran says its first atom plant to start in mid-2008

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran's first atomic power plant will start operating in mid-2008, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said on Sunday, two days after the country received a second delivery of nuclear fuel from Russia.

Mottaki also told Iranian media that Tehran wants assurances that the United States will accept the results of the talks before holding a new meeting about ways to end violence in Iraq.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have held three rounds of talks since May on the security situation in Iraq, easing a diplomatic freeze that lasted almost three decades, but Mottaki's remarks suggested Tehran was not satisfied with the outcome so far.

"These negotiations should have a clear agenda and reach clear results, different from before," he said.

Iran and the United States are at odds over who is to blame for the bloodshed in Iraq and are also embroiled in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions. Washington suspects Iran wants to build a bomb, a charge the Islamic state denies.

In a move both Moscow and Washington said should convince Tehran to shut down its disputed uranium enrichment programme, Russia delivered the first batch of about 80 tonnes of uranium fuel rods to Iran's Bushehr plant on Dec. 17.

A second delivery arrived 11 days later, Iranian media said.

The head of the Russian company building Bushehr, state-run Atomstroiexport, has been quoted as saying the facility would not be operational until at least the end of next year.

But Mottaki said: "Half of the capacity of the Bushehr nuclear power plant will be inaugurated next summer."