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"The launch will not happen by the end of the year," Shmatko told reporters when asked if the station in southwest Iran would start up by the end of 2009, as previously scheduled.

"The engineers have to reach their findings," he said. "The building of the Bushehr station is defined absolutely 100 percent by technological conditions."

Russia's nuclear chief Sergei Kiriyenko, who heads the state holding company which controls the builder of the plant, said in February that the Bushehr launch was scheduled for 2009.