A view of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 1,200 kilometers south of Tehran. Iran began fueling the plant yesterday.

Iranian and Russian engineers yesterday began loading fuel into Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Moscow has promised to safeguard to prevent material at the site from being used in any potential weapons production.

After years of delays, the fueling of the Bushehr plant in southern Iran marks the startup of a facility for energy production that the United States once hoped to block as a way to pressure the country to stop separate nuclear activities of far greater concern.

There have not been strong objections to the Bushehr plant itself as there have been with Iran's separate efforts at other sites to accelerate uranium enrichment