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Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant halts activities for 2 months for refueling

Nuclear Program Materials 29 December 2013 04:44 (UTC +04:00)

Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant halted its activities on Saturday for two months aimed at refueling, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali-Akbar Salehi said on Saturday, IRNA reported.

Salehi who was speaking with Channel One TV of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) also announced that negotiations with the Russian officials for construction of four new nuclear reactors are underway.

The former Iranian foreign minister added that keeping in mind the Iranian technicians' capability for designing and manufacturing new generations of more advanced centrifuges, there is no impossible mission in the field for the Iranians today.

He said that the first generation of the Iranian centrifuges had certain deficiencies, which were altered and improved in the next generations accordingly.

"We produced two types of 2nd generation of centrifuges after that whose capacities were doubled compared to the 1st generation.

Salehi added that likewise, the capacity of the new generation of the Iranian centrifuges is tripled compared with the 1st generation.

The AEOI chief said that 1,000 new generation centrifuges have been set up, but the entire enriched uranium in Iran is processed using the 1st generation centrifuges though, to comply with the terms of the Geneva nuclear deal and no gas is injected into the new centrifuges yet.

That is while a source close to the Iranian nuclear negotiating team said on Friday that Iran and 5+1 Group are most likely to resume their expert-level talks in Geneva on Monday, Dec 30, 2013.

Talking to IRNA on February 27, the source said that the talks will focus on the mechanisms of implementing the content of the recent Geneva agreement.

Earlier, experts of the two parties involved in the talks discussed the process of implementing the Geneva deal during December 19-22.

Senior member of Iran's nuclear negotiating team Seyyed Abbas Araqchi termed the progress of the talks as slow.

After the conclusion of the meeting in Geneva, head of Iran's nuclear negotiating team Hamid Ba'eidinejad, too, declared that the negotiations will continue after the Christmas holidays.

The European Union Foreign Policy Chief Catherine Ashton in a telephone conversation with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif discussed the outcome of the expert-level talks in Geneva at the temporary end of them before Christmas.

The two agreed to proceed with the consultations and nuclear talks be continued after Christmas holidays.

Nuclear talks next week will be the third round of the expert-level talks between Iran and 5+1 Group of world powers on the devising mechanism for implementing the landmark Geneva deal.

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