Russia is ready to help Iran build a new nuclear power plant alongside the first one Moscow helped construct in the city of Bushehr, a top official at the state nuclear firm Rosatom said Tuesday. “If it is not forbidden and if it is advantageous, if there is indeed a project – then yes, we are ready,” news agencies quoted Rosatom's deputy head Nikolai Spassky as saying while on a visit to Kazakhstan. “This is allowed by existing UN Security Council sanctions” which prohibit military trade with Iran because of its suspected drive to develop nuclear weapons, said the official. “There are preliminary discussions on this subject,” Spassky said. Iranian state media reported Sunday that the Islamic republic was ready to either start or possibly even complete building a new nuclear power plant at Bushehr by early 2014. Meanwhile, Iran's state TV is reporting the country's navy relaunched one of its Russian-made submarines after repairing its systems with locally-made replacement parts. The Tuesday report says that navy personnel overhauled the Taregh, one of its three Kilo class submarines, replacing 18,000 components including radar-evading cover, engine parts, propellers and radars. State TV showed video of the relaunch from a dry dock in an Iranian port . Also Iran Tuesday warned Western countries that pressuring Tehran with sanctions while engaged in nuclear talks would jeopardize chances of reaching an agreement. “This approach of pressure concurrent with negotiations will never work. These countries should not enter negotiations with such illusions and misinterpretations,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told a news conference. “They have their own wrong conceptions and this will stop them from coming to a speedy and constructive agreement,” he said in the conference broadcast by state network Press TV. At last week's talks in Baghdad, Iran pushed for the lifting of sanctions on its oil and banking sectors as a sign of goodwill.
