Engineers at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant have announced plans to unload fuel from the reactor. The 1000 MWe reactor, which is being commissioned by Russia's Atomstroyexport, was fuelled in December 2010.

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, said "as Russia has called for undertaking some tests and technical measures, the fuel assemblies are to be unloaded from the reactor core and they will be reloaded after the tests are carried out." He was quoted in a report from Iranian news agency ISNA.

Unloading fuel from the core of Bushehr nuclear reactor has nothing to do with Stuxnet computer worm, Iranian ambassador to Russia told ISNA.

"The measure is in line with final check of the reactor and it was carried out following an agreement between Iranian and Russian experts," Reza Sajjadi told ISNA.

Iran informed the IAEA of its plans on 23 February.

No further technical information is currently available.