Tehran, Iran, September 11
By Mehdi Sepahvand – Trend:
Iran is storing 40 tons of heavy water for the rainy day, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran Ali Akbar Salehi said.
“We will also need less than 500 kilograms backup for which we have allocated 130 tons of heavy water, meaning we will be in no need for heavy water for the Arak reactor anymore,” he told the IRIB September 10.
“In the JCPOA we had made arrangements to put on sale all that is surplus to the 130 tons. If there were a customer, then it will be sold, if not, it will be stored as in the past.”
Iran’s nuclear chief went on to say that toward the Implementation Day of the JCPOA, Tehran transferred 70 tons of heavy water to Oman in order to better assure the US of its commitments. In the near future the remainder will be transferred to Russia, he said.
The JCPOA, a nuclear deal between Iran and the group 5+1 (the US, UK, France, Russia, and China, plus Germany) was implemented on January 16, according to which Iran had to reduce its heavy water and enriched uranium stockpile to prove to the powers that it does not seek a nuclear bomb.
Iran is able to enrich uranium up to 20 percent for peaceful purposes such as medicine, research, etc.
Tehran and Moscow on the same day capped off relations with a decade-long cooperation to construct two new nuclear power plants on the coasts of the Persian Gulf more than one year after the landmark nuclear deal.
“According to the timetable envisaged, the first and second units will be constructed respectively over 108 and 126 months with the cooperation of Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation (Rosatom),” Akbar Salehi said while attending a groundbreaking ceremony to mark the launch of construction of the two new nuclear power plants.
The agreement with Russia’s State Atomic Energy Corporation marks the second cooperation between the two countries since 1992 when the Russian company started completing the Bushehr nuclear power plant, first initiated by a German partner before the 1979 revolution.