Azerbaijan, Baku, April 11 /Trend S.Isayev, T. Jafarov/
The experts of Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) at Iran's Esfahan have managed to prepare fuel rods for Bushehr nuclear power plant, IRIB News reported.
Deputy head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Ghannad Marageh said that the experts of Esfahan's UCF manufactured fuel rods for the Bushehr NPP, just as previously they did for the Tehran Research Reactor and the IR40 reactor in Arak.
"The work was carried out completely without any help from foreign countries," Marageh said, without revealing any more details on the issue.
After being denied with supply of 20-percent enriched uranium for medical research, Iran started processing 20-percent enrichd uranium enrichment itself, and successfully loaded domestically made uranium rods into the Tehran Research Reactor in February 2012.
Marageh said Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent to be able to produce nuclear fuel for country's nuclear reactors.
"Putting nuclear fuel rods into the Tehran Research Reactor was one Iran's greatest achievements, and the same company that made those fuel rods, the Nuclear Fuel Reactor Company "Surah" is now working on the Bushehr NPP," Marageh noted.
As part of marking the National Nuclear Technology Day, Iran yesterday unveiled the "Saghand" uranium mining complex, and "Rezaei Nejad" uranium oxide producing complex.
Marageh said that Iran currently is extracting uranium from well known deposits in Bandar Abbas and Saghand.
"The nuclear fuel cycle is a complex one. First the uranium deposits must be explored, then the uranium is extracted, and further on," Marageh said, adding that the experts continue.
The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies.
The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical researches instead.