Iran atomic inspectors said this week that it had encountered a serious problem in a nuclear reactor, recently concluded that was supposed to start feeding electricity to the national grid this month, raising questions about whether the problem was sabotage, a startup problem, or possibly after the completion of the project.
In a report on Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Iran told inspectors on Wednesday it planned to unload nuclear fuel from its reactor at Bushehr - the sign of great unease. For years, Tehran has welcomed the reactor as a sign of their peaceful nuclear intentions and its imminent launch as a sign of accelerated progress.
But nuclear experts said the giant reactor, Iran's first nuclear power plant, now threatens to become a great shame, as 163 engineers to remove fuel rods from its core.
Iran gave no reason for the unexpected discharge fuel, but has admitted that the worm infected Stuxnet Bushehr reactor. On Friday, experts debated whether Stuxnet responsible for the development team was amazing.
Russia, which provides fuel to Iran, said this month that the reactor worm infection should be investigated, arguing that it could trigger a nuclear disaster. Other experts said such fears were exaggerated, but noted that the complete operation of the worm Stuxnet remains unclear.
In interviews Friday, nuclear experts said the problem was behind the fuel discharge could range from security issues and minor operational ineptitude serious problems that would bring the reactor to short shelf life to a premature end.
"It could be simple and embarrassing all the way to 'game over'," said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists and a former official of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which oversees nuclear reactors in the United States.
Mr. Lochbaum added that having to download a new reactor fuel "was not unprecedented, but not an everyday occurrence." He said it happened maybe once in every 25 or 30 fuelings. In Canada, he added, a reactor was fed recently and discarded after the late discovery of serious technical problems.
"This could represent a substantial retreat of the program," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that follows nuclear proliferation, the problem behind the unrest of Bushehr.
"It raises a question of whether Iran can operate a modern nuclear reactor security, said. "The stakes are very high. You can have a Chernobyl-style accident with this type of reactor, and there are plenty of questions about this possibility in the region."
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The new IAEA report - a quarterly periodical review Iran's nuclear program to the Council of the Agency - took the discharge reactor only a brief mention, and devoted mainly to a charge under unusually full force of Iran's refusal to answer questions about what the inspectors of the "possible military dimensions" of its nuclear program.
The report refers to "the new information recently received," suggesting further work towards a nuclear warhead.
But the inspectors did not elaborate on new information or how it was received. The IAEA often takes its data from the intelligence agencies of member countries, including United States, but also tries to gather data from their own sources.
Friday's report that relates directly to concerns that Iran was working on developing a nuclear charge of a missile. "But he said that all requests for information had been ignored for years, with Iranian officials saying that all the information the agency possessed, is based on forgeries.
The White House said Friday that the report shed new light on what he called Iran's covert movement toward nuclear weapons.
"The IAEA reports of obstruction and Iran's refusal to cooperate are troubling," said Tommy Vietor, spokesman for the National Security Council. "We will continue to hold Iran accountable to its international nuclear obligations, including the deepening of international pressure on Iran."
The reactor is located outside the Iranian city of Bushehr, Persian coast of the Gulf nation. Priced at over a billion dollars, which is surrounded by dozens of anti-aircraft guns and radar stations of great significance to track aircraft approaching.
Its history began around 1975 with a contract tangled West Germany. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the West Germans withdrew. Iraq repeatedly bombed the half-built reactor between 1984 and 1988.
Iran signed an agreement with Russia reconstruction in 1995 it should have the project completed in 1999. But the plan bogged down in delays.
The United States once opposed the plant. However, Washington withdrew its opposition after Russia agreed to take back the spent rods, eliminating the possibility that Iran could reprocess the material that could fuel nuclear weapons.
The burden of uranium fuel in the reactor was initially scheduled to begin shortly after delivery to Bushehr in August, but was delayed by what the Iranians said it was a leak in a pool near the central reactor.
In October, Iranian officials said the worm had infected Stuxnet the reactor complex, but downplayed the issue. Mohammad Ahmadian, an Iranian Atomic Energy Organization official, said that the affected computers have been "inspected and cleaned."
Later, in October, as the power system was finally launched, after three decades of delay, the head of the Organisation of Iran Atomic Energy, Ali Akbar Salehi, called the Bushehr reactor, power plant world's most exceptional. "
In December, he predicted that the plant would be connected to the national grid, 19 February. "This phase," he said, according to the Tehran Times ", is the most important operational work of the plant."
In an interview Friday, a European diplomat familiar with Iran's nuclear program is called the problem powering a major setback, even if the cause proves to be less monumental art.
"It is clearly a significant setback for the launch of the reactor," said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic sensitivity of the issue.
He said that engineers at Bushehr had identified a technical fault, but struggled to understand their cause.
"It's too early to tell," said the diplomat. "I'm sure the Iranians are studying very desperate."
This story, "Iran indicates a major setback in a nuclear power," originally appeared in The New York Times.
