International Shia News Agency

Official: No fuel swap on agenda

SHAFAQNA (Shia International News Association)- Iran will not participate in any fuel-swap deal, AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi has said in a live interview to Iranian state TV on Tuesday Dec. 16.

Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi touched upon the nuclear negotiations and said, “we have had some progress as compared to last year but there still remains certain issues that need legal, technical and political debates. Yet, the two sides’ views have come closer to one another.”

In regard to the IAEA’s allegations on the explosive experiments in Marivan, he said, “the documents that the Agency had provided were not genuine. Our envoy to the IAEA, Reza Najafi told the Board of Governors during its quarterly conference on November 21 that once the IAEA specifies the exact site of the explosions, Iran will allow them to visit the Marivan region.” The IAEA, however, has been hesitant in taking Iran on its offer to visit the site.

To a question on whether the testing of the new generation of centrifuges has stopped, he replied, “AEOI is resolutely proceeding with its projects. We possess the IR4, IR5, IR6 and IR8 centrifuges and the IR8 is the latest generation of centrifuges which has not been injected with UF6 gas.”

Is UF6 gas injection not against the Geneva agreement? “No it is not,” he said, “gas injection is in line with research and development and does not violate the Geneva deal. But as a sign of our goodwill, we have decided not to inject into the IR8. Still, we are proceeding with our agenda and the centrifuges that we possess now will produce 24 SWU.”

Responding to whether there might be a deal in which Iran would send its uranium abroad to be turned into fuel rods for the reactor, he said, “there will be no fuel-swap deal, and in the future once the restrictions are ended, we will bring back our uranium from abroad.”

Kamalvandi also talked about Iran-Russia agreement for construction of a new nuclear plant and said, “we definitely need to supply the fuel and Russia must be committed to provide us with it. Hwoever, this is a one-way commitment and we can decide to produce fuel on our own if we wish so. But it should be noted that producing fuel for power plants is much more sensitive and complex than reactor fuels so we will need the Russian help with this.”

“We are ready to cooperate with any country in the construction of power plants,” he added.

Kamalvandi, while prompted to respond to a question on the AEOI’s readiness in case of a failure in the nuclear talks, said, “we know that the possibility of an agreement is high, but if we are to be pessimistic about it and entertain the thought of a failure in reaching an agreement, then I have to say Iran will proceed with its nuclear technology development under any circumstances whatsoever.”

 

Source:Mehrnews

www.shafaqna.com

 

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