MOSCOW/TEHRAN - Russia has delivered its first shipment of nuclear fuel to a reactor it is helping to build at Bushehr as Iran’s atomic chief said the plant will be connected to power grid after March 2008.

Iran and Russia reached agreement last week on a schedule to finish building the plant after years of delays.
The Russian company building the Bushehr plant, Atomstroiexport, said the delivery of the enriched uranium fuel began on Sunday.
Atomstroiexport said the containers of fuel had been inspected and sealed before delivery by the UN's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
""On December 16 the delivery of fuel began from Russia to the Iranian atomic power station in Bushehr,"" the Russian foreign ministry said as carried by BBC.
Gholamreza Aghazadeh, the director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), confirmed that the first delivery had arrived. ""The delivery of fuel will continue and the whole amount of fuel will be delivered to Iran as scheduled,"" Aghazadeh said.
There are two pressurized water reactors at the Bushehr site, one of which is reportedly near completion and likely to be the first major Iranian reactor to begin generating electricity, possibly by mid-2008.
Russian officials have previously said the plant could be operational within six months of fuel being delivered.
Iran first planned a reactor near the southwestern port of Bushehr with German assistance in 1974.
Those plans were abandoned after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 but the Russians picked up the project in 1992.
On December 13, Russia and Iran agreed on a schedule to finish construction on the Bushehr plant after repeated delays.
The company said the first delivery of 163 canisters of uranium-235 arrived at Bushehr on Sunday.
The full delivery will take up to two months, Atomstroiexport said. The fuel is lowly-enriched uranium and Russia's foreign ministry said it had received assurances from Tehran that the fuel would not be used anywhere but at Bushehr.
-------Bushehr plant will join power grid after March 2008
Aghazadeh described the delivery of the fuel as another good news for the efforts to generate nuclear electricity, saying the plant will be connected to the country’s national electricity grid after March 2008.
He said the plant is 95 percent complete.
Aghazadeh also said the delivery of fuel to the plant sends a message that the nuclear issue is becoming normalized due to Iran’s close cooperation with the IAEA.
“The arrival of the fuel will have a considerable effect on Iran’s nuclear case in the world, especially since Russia is a member of the 5+1 group and has a veto in the Security Council.
“When Russia says that it will continue its nuclear cooperation with Iran and confirms the (UN nuclear) agency’s reports on Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities, this is a preliminary step toward developing 20,000 megawatts of nuclear electricity in Iran.”
The atomic chief expressed hope that all the IAEA’s remaining questions about Iran’s nuclear program would be answered during the current Iranian calendar year, which ends March 19, 2008.
If that were the case, there would be no more reasons for Iran’s nuclear dossier to remain on the Security Council agenda, he noted