Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 30
By Khalid Kazimov - Trend:
Azerbaijan and Norway contributed to the shipment of Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium to Russia, an Iranian official with foreign ministry said.
Iranian Foreign Ministry's Director General for Political and Security Affairs Hamid Baeedinejad said that a difficult task regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA/nuclear deal) was implemented over the past day, IRNA reported Dec. 30.
He further added that the shipment process has been coordinated with Russia and Kazakhstan.
According to him Iran has bartered nine tons of enriched uranium as well as nuclear waste in exchange for a certain amount of yellowcake.
Yellowcake is a type of uranium concentrate powder obtained from leach solutions, in an intermediate step in the processing of uranium ores. It is a step in the processing of uranium after it has been mined, before fuel fabrication or enrichment.
Earlier on 29. Dec, director of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi said that his organization received about 200 tons of yellowcake from Russia as part of the July nuclear deal between Tehran and the world powers.
According to Salehi Iran shipped about 11 tons of enriched uranium in exchange for the yellowcake.
Salehi expressed hope that after shipping the enriched uranium to Russia the way for lifting Iran's sanctions will be paved.
Under the deal with the world powers, the stockpile of Iran's enriched uranium must be slashed to no more than 300kg.
The July nuclear deal also requires Iran to dismantle most of its centrifuges and also the core of the Arak heavy water reactor before the removal of international sanctions against Tehran.
Ealier Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said that there were plans to complete the withdrawal of enriched uranium from Iran until the end of the year. He said the withdrawal volume amounted to "over 8.5 tons" of low-enriched uranium material.
Earlier in Mid-December, the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Board of Governors adopted a resolution closing the PMD (possible military dimensions to Tehran's nuclear program) file - a move that ends a 12-year probe into Tehran's nuclear program.