BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 17. Iran exports heavy water to various countries that use high technology and operate in this field, said Vice President and Chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Mohammad Eslami, Trend reports.
He spoke to reporters after the meeting of the Cabinet of Iran in Tehran on January 17.
The vice president noted that even Iran once exported heavy water to the US.
Eslami said that currently Iran is producing heavy water derivatives, and it has orders for heavy water derivatives.
As reported, heavy water and heavy water derivatives are used in various fields, including pharmaceuticals. Iran exports heavy water to 7-8 countries.
The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) had a limit of 130 tons for Iran’s heavy water stocks. But in 2020, Iran stopped following the deal’s rules, and the amount of its heavy water reserves became unknown.
Iran claims that its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes such as electricity generation, agriculture, and other fields, but the IAEA has reported that Iran has increased its highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months and now has 4,745 kilograms of enriched uranium. This is 15 times more than the amount allowed for Iran in the JCPOA.
Iran’s nuclear program was the subject of the JCPOA, a deal signed by Iran and the P5+1 group (US, Russia, China, UK, France, and Germany) on January 16, 2016. However, on May 8, 2018, the US withdrew from the JCPOA and imposed new sanctions on Iran as of November 2018, affecting its oil exports and freezing its assets abroad. More than 700 banks, companies, and individuals were also targeted by the sanctions.
Iran has been trying to resume talks with the other parties on its nuclear issue and revive the JCPOA. The main goals of Iran are to end the sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, access funds frozen abroad, and resume its crude oil exports.
In late 2020, the Iranian parliament decided to implement a strategic plan to tackle the sanctions, citing the non-implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between Iran and six countries and the imposition of sanctions on Iran.
According to the decision of the Iranian parliament, as of February 23, Iran suspended the implementation of additional steps and an additional protocol provided for in the nuclear deal. As a result, the control mechanism of the IAEA decreased by 20–30 percent.
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