Tehran, Dec 22, IRNA -- Russian Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev arrived here Sunday for a four-day visit to hold talks with Iranian officials over "speeding up" the completion of Bushehr plant and bilateral cooperation for a peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Rumyantsev will meet several Iranian officials, including Iranian Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO) head, Gholamreza Aqazadeh, Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi and Vice-President Mohammad-Reza Aref, an IAEO official told IRNA here Sunday.

The minister will also travel to Bushehr in southern Iran to observer construction work on the plant which the Islamic Republic is building with Russian help.

The Russian Itar-Tass news agency said Saturday that Rumyantsev will also discuss the issue of transferring nuclear fuel waste from Iran to Russia.

It further cited the minister as reiterating that nuclear cooperation between Tehran and Moscow was 'strictly peaceful' and that it did not violate international conventions on nuclear energy activities.

Rumyantsev also repeated Russia's earlier announcement that the country planned to build a new nuclear energy unit in Iran, but the two countries had yet to start negotiations on that, Itar-Tass said.

Under the one-billion-dollar deal, Russia had initially undertaken to finish the Bushehr plant in 2005, but the country later announced it could be completed by the end of 2003.

Washington has already been claiming that Iran may use Bushehr plant for developing nuclear arms. Both Iran and Russia have rejected these allegations.

US officials were also cited recently as alleging that American satellites had spotted two Iranian sites, one in the central city of Arak and the other in Natanz in the central province of Isfahan, which suggested they could be used for making nuclear weapons.

Iran strongly rejected the allegations and reiterated that the two plants were intended to generate electricity.

"In the next 20 years, Iran has to produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity by nuclear plants and the launch of these two centers are aimed at producing necessary fuel for these plants," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said that 'such American propaganda against Iran is not new and is intended to divert the world public opinion from the Zionist regime's threats to the region at this sensitive juncture'.

"Iran believes it has the right to carry out necessary researches for peaceful use of nuclear energy and no country can deprive it of this natural right," Asefi added.

Tehran later invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to travel to Iran to inspect both the facilities, which has been accepted.

"We have been in contacts with the IAEA over these two centers and we will officially invite them for inspections since the agency must inspect them and carry out their necessary planning and supervision before the centers are put into operation," Kharrazi added.