National Nuclear Technology Day in Iran Date in the current year: April 9, 2024

Iran’s nuclear program was launched in the 1950s with the help of the United States and Western European governments as part of the Atoms for Peace program initiated by the United States. Iran opened the Tehran Nuclear Research Center in 1967 and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968.

In 1974, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the country’s main official body responsible for managing and overseeing the nuclear program. The next year, the construction of the first nuclear plant in Iran and the entire Middle East began near Bushehr.

Following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the nuclear program was put on hold for almost two decades due to post-revolutionary chaos and international sanctions. In 1995, Iran signed a contract with Russia to resume work on the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant. The reactor officially opened in 2010, and the construction of the second reactor formally started in 2017.

National Nuclear Technology Day in Iran was officially established on April 9, 2006 to commemorate the 4th National Symposium on Nuclear Technology that took place in 1989.