As the Kremlin announces another delay in the launch of a nuclear plant in southeastern Iran, Iranian lawmakers hint that Moscow's impediment may backfire.

"The Russians are already behind in the agreed schedule for the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant; we have never before witnessed such insulting behavior," Falahat-Pisheh, a member of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met his American counterpart Barack Obama on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific summit in Singapore on Sunday, a day before Kremlin's Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko announced another delay in the launch of the Bushehr power plant.

Shmatko claimed the decision was purely technical and that Russia would fulfill its contractual obligations to Iran.

"The plant has no technical problem," argued Falahat-Pisheh, "Russian officials have once again sold Iran to the Americans at a higher price."

The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Energy Hamidreza Katouzian indicated on Tuesday that "Russia's failure to deliver on its obligations" may cost the federation its "economic and political ties with Iran."

"The Russians should know if they politicize the completion of the Bushehr nuclear power plant project, then ... ties between Iran and Russia would face many changes," he added.

After the originally German-built reactor was left unfinished by the Germans following the fall of the Shah in the late 1970s, Russians were granted the contract to complete the nuclear power plant in Bushehr in 1995.

However, hindrance on the part of the Russian contractor, Atomstroiexport, has so far prevented the launch of Iran's first nuclear power plant.

The Bushehr plant was originally scheduled to be completed in 1999 but its completion has repeatedly been delayed, and after some ten years, Moscow still continues to postpone the launch of the facility.

Russia is also running behind schedule on an agreement to deliver to Iran the sophisticated S-300 missile defense system, a mobile land-based system designed to shoot down aircrafts and cruise missiles.

MT/MB