TEHRAN, June 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Russia on Tuesday discussed new ways for the "expansion of peaceful nuclear cooperation", the official IRNA news agency reported.

    Deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Mohammad Saeedi held talks in Moscow with Sergei Kiriyenko, head of Russia's Rosatom State Atomic Corporation, IRNA said.

    "The Iranian delegation and officials of Rosatom held talks in a positive and constructive atmosphere," Saeedi told IRNA.

    "During the talks, the two sides drew plans for future cooperation in nuclear field," he added.

    According to the report, the inauguration of Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant by Russia, which had already been set for mid-summer 2009, was discussed by the two sides.

    In April, Iran's Energy Minister Parviz Fattah said Bushehr nuclear power plant would start to generate electricity from mid-summer.

    "Bushehr nuclear power plant will generate 500 megawatt electricity from mid-summer," IRNA quoted Fattah as saying.

    The operation of the nuclear power plant had been one of the Iranians' old dreams, he added.

    The country's 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant originally started in the mid-1970s by Siemens of Germany but was abandoned with the outbreak of the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution.

    Iran and Russia, after reaching an agreement on nuclear cooperation in 1992, signed a contract in January 1995 to finish the construction of the plant, the completion of which has been repeatedly delayed.