NICOSIA, Cyprus -- Russian technicians have started work in Iran to help complete a nuclear power plant begun before the 1979 Islamic revolution, the official IRNA news agency quoted a senior official as saying.


"The completion work of Bushehr's atomic power plant has begun with the help of Russian experts," it quoted the official as saying over the weekend.


IRNA, monitored in Cyprus, did not say when the Russians started work.


The Atomic Energy Organization official, identified only by his family name of Mehralizadeh, said work at the plant had restarted with a credit in rials equal to $850 million, but did not say if any foreign credit was involved.


The first phase will be operational during the five-year development plan that starts in March 1995, the news agency quoted the official as saying.


Iran said in June that Russian experts would help revive work at the plant, located on the Gulf coast 750 kilometers south of Tehran. The plant should provide Iran with one-seventh of its electricity needs once completed.


Work on the nuclear power plant by two German companies started in 1974, five years before being interrupted by the Islamic revolution.


IRNA said in June that by the end of 1978, 80 percent of the plant's first reactor and 60 percent of its second reactor had been built. But the plant was heavily damaged by Iraqi bombing raids during the Iran-Iraq war.


Atomic Energy Organization chief Reza Amrollahi Amrollahi said Iran's use of nuclear energy was peaceful.