Iran nuclear plan Archives - Iran News Daily

Iran, IAEA Improving Relations: Kamalvandi

reporter 1222 — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 09:32:03 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The AEOI spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi said on Tuesday that improving relations is of high importance for both Iran and the IAEA and the two have been working on resolving mutual affairs in the past two months.

He added that the two sides will not allow other countries to influence or manage the IAEA-Iran relationship.

Kamalvandi also reiterated that IAEA chief’s ongoing visit to Tehran is not related to the activation of the snapback mechanism or any other political issues.

He underlined that in his visit, Grossi is discussing mutual affairs with Iran.

The spox added that the IAEA chief has asked to visit different sites Iran but the made request has not had firm legal justifications.

He said Iran will let the agency to have access to its sites under organizational protocols.

Iran expects its interaction with the agency to be based on the legal obligations of both parties, he noted.

Grossi arrived in Tehran on Monday evening on his first visit to the country since taking office in December to hold talks with senior Iranian officials. He was welcomed by the AEOI spokesman, Behrouz Kamalvandi, upon his arrival.

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Iran: Transparency enabled IAEA record nuclear inspections in 2019

reporter 1222 — Thu, 07 May 2020 05:05:33 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Outlining the level of Tehran’s cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog, the Iran ambassador to international organizations in Vienna said the Islamic Republic received the biggest part of the inspections that were carried out worldwide by the IAEA in 2019.

Last year, the Islamic Republic received 21 percent of the entire visits that were made to various nuclear sites across the world by inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA), Kazem Gharibabadi told reporters on Tuesday, Press TV reported.

He was citing the IAEA’s 129-page 2019 Safeguards Implementation Report.

The country also received more than 90 percent of the visits that were paid by the inspectors to the 62 countries which have signed the Safeguards Agreement with the agency and its Additional Protocol.

The Safeguards Agreement ensures non-diversion of nuclear material declared by a country, while the Additional Protocol guarantees more intrusive inspections of worldwide nuclear facilities.

Providing a lowdown, the diplomat said out of the agency’s 466 inspections, 432 ones were carried out at Iran’s nuclear sites.

The agency also implemented 45 “additional inspections” of the 62 countries, 33 (73 percent) of which were carried out in the Islamic Republic, he added.

This is not the first time that the Islamic Republic tops the list of the most-frequently-inspected countries, Gharibabadi pointed out, noting that the sheer frequency of the inspections reflected the “complete transparency” of Iran’s nuclear activities.

Iran can reconsider cooperation

Gharibabadi, meanwhile, cautioned that Iran could reconsider its cooperation with the IAEA given the threats that have been posed to its 2015 nuclear agreement with world powers. The agreement, which is also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), enabled “surprise” visits into Iran’s nuclear work.

The Iranian diplomat highlighted the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018, its recent attempt to seek a renewal of a UN arms embargo that will expire under the JCPOA in October, and the failure of the UK, France, and Germany – Washington’s allies that are still party to the JCPOA – to keep up their business ties with Iran in the wake of the US departure.

Given the unfavorable circumstances brought about by those countries, “cooperation [with the IAEA] is not the only option lying before Iran,” he said, warning that the Islamic Republic could also revisit its commitments under the Safeguards Agreement.

The IAEA report was also addressed in a story by Bloomberg News that likewise pointed to the “record pace” of the agency’s inspections of Iranian sites last year.

“The agency continued to verify and monitor the nuclear-related commitments of the Islamic Republic of Iran under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action,” it cited the report as saying.

The agency bolstered on-the-ground inspections with “more extensive and timely relevant present and historical images” captured by satellites, Bloomberg cited the document as saying.

The American news agency said the report “shows that monitors continued receiving wide access to Iranian nuclear sites,” saying 269 monitors and analysts were tasked by the agency to focus on Iran’s nuclear program.

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Bushehr nuclear plant gets batch of nuclear fuel

reporter 1222 — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 07:09:21 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – A new batch of nuclear fuel has been delivered to the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) announced.

According to AEOI, the new batch was delivered based on the schedule of the Iranian and Russian side for the power plant’s annual refueling.

The Russian Embassy also said in a tweet that, “thanks to efforts of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, [Russian nuclear corporation] Rosatom and the Russian Foreign Ministry, a new batch of nuclear fuel was delivered to the Bushehr NPP. It was necessary for further functioning of the reactor.”

On April 12, a deputy head of Iran’s atomic agency, Mahmoud Jafari, announced that Bushehr’s Unit 1 will be temporarily shut down for refueling and technical maintenance in the run-up to the peak season in summer.

The Bushehr facility sits 17 kilometers southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf coast in southwestern Iran.

The power plant started operating in 2011 and reached its full capacity the following year.

In 2014, Russia signed a cooperation contract with Iran to help build the second and third Bushehr reactors, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2026, respectively.

Iran has repeatedly enunciated its nuclear program as exclusively civilian, subject to the most intensive UN supervisions ever.

Tehran signed a nuclear deal in 2015 with six world countries, which forged close cooperation between Iran and the Agency.

The IAEA has been tasked with supervising the technical aspects of the agreement’s implementation.

The US, however, severely undermined the pact by abandoning it in May 2018 despite numerous IAEA reports on Tehran’s full compliance with the deal.

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Bushehr nuclear plant temporarily deactivated

reporter 1222 — Sun, 12 Apr 2020 08:03:26 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – According to an official with the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Bushehr nuclear power plant will temporarily stop its output based on annual plans for changing fuels, doing inspections, and performing periodical repairs.

“One of the goals of the current refueling program is that the plant would hopefully produce the required energy during the country’s peak electricity consumption in the summer,” added Mahmoud Jafari, deputy head of AEOI, on Sunday.

After the refueling is done, the production of electricity will resume in the first unit of the nuclear power plant according to the timetable, he said.

Since its inauguration, the plant has provided 43 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity to the country’s electrical grid, Jafari said, noting that from the last refueling in May 2019 till now, the plant has produced 7.2 billion kilowatt-hours of energy.

The Bushehr facility sits 17 kilometers southeast of the city of Bushehr along the Persian Gulf coast in southwestern Iran.

The Bushehr power plant started operating in 2011 and reached its full capacity the following year.

In 2014, Russia signed a cooperation contract with Iran to help build the second and third Bushehr reactors, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2026, respectively.

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US rapped for misleading world on Iran’s enrichment right

reporter 1222 — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 05:31:36 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Russia accused the United States of misleading the international community on Iran’s right for uranium enrichment, describing as “mythmaking” a claim by Washington that a UN Security Council resolution has banned any enrichment in Iran.

“We consider it necessary to respond to the US special representative for Iran Hook about the existence of some kind of ‘UN standard’ prohibiting the Islamic Republic of Iran’s right from its uranium enrichment capacity,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

The statement said the US claim accuses the UN Security Council of contradicting the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

“Unfortunately, such mythmaking has long been part of the US approach toward nuclear non-proliferation … In this case, we have, essentially, an accusation against the UN Security Council of making decisions contradicting the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT),” the ministry added.

The statement also recalled that the treaty allows the signatories to develop nuclear energy for non-military purposes.

It also noted that the NPT does not impose any restrictions on non-nuclear states in terms of uranium enrichment as long as they are under the control of the UN atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and pursue peaceful purposes.

“In other words, the NPT puts no limitations on the non-nuclear countries regarding uranium enrichment or developing other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle. There is only one condition: that all work must be directed toward peaceful ends and be under IAEA supervision”, the ministry noted.

The statement came after US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook told journalists on Friday about an alleged UN resolution passed in 2006 or 2007 prohibiting Tehran from uranium enrichment.

In 2015, Iran signed a nuclear deal officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and the European Union. The JCPOA required Iran to put certain limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

In 2018, the United States abandoned the deal, and hit the Iranian economy with the “toughest sanctions ever”.

On May 8, 2019, the first anniversary of the United States’ unilateral withdrawal from the agreement, Iran announced a gradual reduction of its JCPOA obligations.

On January 5, following the killing of Iran’s top military commander Qassem Soleimani in a US drone attack near the Baghdad International Airport, Tehran said it was rolling back all its commitments under the JCPOA.

In reaction to Iran’s move, European parties to the deal, which had failed to fulfill their commitments under the JCPOA, threatened to take Iran’s nuclear issue to the UN Security Council.

The E3 (Germany, UK, and France) formally triggered the dispute mechanism within the agreement, accusing Iran of having violated the accord. Iran would now be asked to resolve the so-called dispute with the European trio, and the process could ultimately lead to the reimposition of the Security Council’s sanctions that were lifted by the accord.

In reaction to the threat, Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday said that if Britain, France, and Germany continue their unjustifiable conduct and move to send Iran’s nuclear case to the United Nations Security Council, Tehran would have the option of exiting the NPT.

Zarif explained that Iran was the party to initially trigger the dispute mechanism in 2018 by sending three letters to the European Union to notify them of Tehran’s dissatisfaction with Europe’s non-commitment to the agreement. The Islamic Republic, he added, was then forced to resort to the nuclear countermeasures as the Europeans remained in violation of the accord.

He, however, said Tehran’s measures were reversible providing Europe would recommit to its JCPOA obligations.

Press TV and Sputnik contributed to this story.

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Merkel, Putin agree on necessity of Iran nuclear deal

reporter 1222 — Sun, 12 Jan 2020 05:20:07 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed that preserving the Iran nuclear deal is a matter of “tremendous importance”, adding that the agreement should be kept by all means necessary.

The Vladimir Putin hosted his German counterpart, Angela Merkel, in the Kremlin on Saturday, to discuss issues such as Iran nuclear deal, according to RT.

The meeting came after European foreign ministers on Friday rallied behind the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, despite the US president’s renewed call for allies to abandon it.

The European Union has said that it will “spare no effort” to keep the nuclear deal alive, even though Tehran said it would no longer be bound by the agreement’s restrictions on centrifuges and uranium enrichment following the Trump administration’s assassination of Iranian Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, according to The Washington Post.

During an emergency session on Friday, the European foreign ministers also said the escalation between the United States and Iran had risked progress against the Daesh terrorist group.

In an attempt to avoid an escalation between Iran and the US, EU leaders in the recent week have intensified diplomatic activities, trying to salvage the EU-brokered nuclear deal while making sure the US-led anti-Daesh coalition continues to operate in Iraq after Iraq’s parliament called for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country, Euractiv website reported.

“The region cannot afford another war, we call for an urgent de-escalation and maximum restraint,” EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell told reporters following the meeting in Brussels on Friday, that had reaffirmed European commitments preserving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“We have been saying in the past and we continue to say that we regret the US decision to withdraw from the deal,” Borrell said, “And we continue believing that this deal is a key element of the global nuclear non-proliferation architecture and critical for the regional stability.”

He also warned that negotiating a new pact would be a “very complex, highly technical process” that would take a long time.

The US Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook claimed on Friday that Washington’s sanctions policy on Iran is a more effective non-proliferation tool to force Tehran to negotiate a broader accord than the 2015 nuclear deal,

His remarks stood in contrast to those of EU foreign ministers.

“It is clear that we are in a completely different position from the United States,” Borrell told reporters after the meeting.

Borrell also admitted that the potential differences between the treaty parties could at some point become so irreconcilable that they could risk the deal collapsing.

The European officials did not consider triggering a dispute resolution process that could lead to renewed United Nations sanctions on Iran.

Since the Trump administration decided to exit the deal in 2018, all three European parties to the pact – Britain, France, and Germany – have repeatedly stressed their commitment to saving it, even after a call by Trump on Wednesday urging them to join him in walking away.

One of the contentious points between Europe and Washington has been the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges (INSTEX), which was born as the brainchild of France, Germany, and the UK in January 2019, and recently joined by further European countries.

It was created as a special purpose vehicle to help EU companies do business with Iran and facilitate non-USD transactions to avoid breaking US sanctions against the country.

European efforts, however, to ensure that Iran can keep trading in spite of the sanctions have had little impact.

The Trump administration on Friday imposed new sanctions on Iran, with the latest round set to target multiple sectors of the Islamic Republic’s economy, including construction, manufacturing, textiles, and mining.

Borrell has invited Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif for talks to Brussels, but a date for his visit has yet to be set.

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New generations of centrifuges to unveil

reporter 1222 — Sun, 08 Dec 2019 05:56:50 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) plans to unveil 50 new technological achievements in building new generations of centrifuges and producing heavy water in the early days of the next Iranian year, which starts on March 20, 2020.

The announcement was made by Ali Asqar Zare’an, the assistant head of the AEOI on Saturday.

“50 new achievements will be unveiled on April 9, including new generations of centrifuges system and power plant heavy water,” the Fars news agency quoted Zare’an as saying in a ceremony in Karaj, a city in the west of Tehran.

April 9 is marked as National Nuclear Technology Day in Iran.

He also said that the Arak heavy water reactor will start new activities next year.

Zare’an added that the enemies are angry that Iran has full control over the nuclear fuel cycle.

Last month, Iran started to inject uranium gas into centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear facility under the supervision of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog.

It was the latest move by Iran to reduce its nuclear commitments in retaliation to the U.S. exit from the 2015 nuclear deal and restoration of previous sanctions and adding new ones, including a ban on Iran’s oil export.

“At the presence of inspectors from International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran started injecting (uranium) gas into centrifuges in Fordow,” the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) said.

According to Al Jazeera, a spokesman for the IAEA said the UN nuclear watchdog’s nuclear inspectors at the site “will report back on relevant activities”.

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New IAEA chief approach toward Iran ‘firm and fair’

reporter 1222 — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 04:55:49 +0000

New IAEA chief said Monday he will take a “firm and fair” approach toward inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, and plans to visit Tehran in the near future.

New IAEA chief, the Argentine diplomat Rafael Mariano Grossi’s comments and approach came after he was confirmed as the new director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously at a special session. His four-year term begins today, Iran News quotes what AP reported.

The 58-year-old succeeds Yukiya Amano, who died in July. Grossi became Argentina’s ambassador to the Vienna-based IAEA in 2013 and was previously the IAEA’s chief of the cabinet under Amano.

Iran’s landmark 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) pledged economic incentives in exchange for curbs on Tehran’s nuclear program. The IAEA’s role has been to inspect and verify Iran’s compliance with the deal.

With the unilateral withdrawal of the United States from the agreement last year and the reimposition of new American sanctions, Iran’s economy has been struggling. So far, the other nations involved – France, Germany, Britain, China, and Russia – have been unable to offset the effects, and Iran has slowly been scaling back its commitments to the JCPOA.

Tehran is, however, continuing to provide IAEA inspectors access to nuclear plants under the JCPOA.

Grossi told reporters he expected to travel to Iran himself in the “relatively near future” to meet with Iranian officials.

“It is really a priority,” he said of the situation in Iran, adding that his philosophy on inspection safeguards was to be “firm and fair.”

Those “two guiding principles” apply not just to Iran, but to how the IAEA deals with everybody, though “different cases demand different approaches,” he said.

“An inspector is not a friend. He’s someone who comes and needs to ascertain the facts without bias, without agenda, in an objective and impartial way,” Grossi said. “This has to be done in firmness, but in fairness as well.”

Despite Washington’s withdrawal, Tehran remained completely compliant with the JCPOA for an entire year as confirmed by the IAEA in several reports, waiting for the co-signatories to fulfill their end of the bargain by offsetting the impacts of the sanctions.

In May 2018, US President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled his country out of the international deal, in defiance of global criticism, and later reimposed the sanctions that had been lifted against Tehran as part of the agreement.

In response to the move, Tehran has so far rowed back on its nuclear commitments four times in compliance with Articles 26 and 36 but stressed that its retaliatory measures will be reversible as soon as Europe finds practical ways to shield the mutual trade from the sanctions.

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Parliament nuclear committee visit heavy water complex

reporter 1222 — Wed, 27 Nov 2019 13:35:41 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – Iranian parliament’s Nuclear Committee paid a visit to Arak heavy water complex and nuclear reactor on Wednesday.

The MPs, in this visit, were informed of the site’s facilities and procedures besides its production, engineering and technical activities.

The visit was paid to let the MPs prepare their periodical report (each six months) about the activities and measures of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), regarding its JCPOA commitments and reduction of obligations.

On November 18, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported said that Iran has accumulated more than 130 tons of heavy water in continuation of its cuts to JCPOA commitments.

“On 16 November 2019, Iran informed the Agency that its stock of heavy water had exceeded 130 metric tons,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a report to member states, Reuters reported.

“On 17 November 2019, the Agency verified that the Heavy Water Production Plant (HWPP) was in operation and that Iran’s stock of heavy water was 131.5 metric tonnes,” the report added.

Iran took the fourth step back from its commitments to the nuclear deal earlier this month at the end of a 60-day ultimatum to remaining parties to the nuclear deal to live up to their own commitments to the JCPOA ended while they did not take any practical steps to meet Iran’s demands.

Iran demands European countries make up for its losses after the US withdrawal from the accord and help Iran with its oil sales and banking relations.

Tehran says its countermeasures are in accordance with the paragraphs 26 and 36 of the nuclear deal, and that it will reverse the steps once its demands are met.

As a first step, Iran increased its enriched uranium stockpile to a level above the 300 kilograms set by the JCPOA.

In the second step, Tehran began enriching uranium to purity rates beyond the JCPOA-limit of 3.76 percent.

Furthermore, Tehran lifted all restrictions on nuclear research and development and announced it would use advanced centrifuges as its third step.

In the 4th step, the Iranian nuclear agency resumed uranium enrichment to 4.5% at Fordow nuclear facility by injecting gas into advanced IR6 centrifuges, while Iran had agreed in the JCPOA not to conduct enrichment in the underground facility.

Each time Iran gives a 60-day deadline to the other parties before taking its next step.

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Iran ready to exchange nuke experience with Persian Gulf countries

reporter 1222 — Mon, 11 Nov 2019 07:30:18 +0000

TEHRAN (Iran News) – The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi says the Islamic Republic is ready to exchange with the Persian Gulf countries its experience with regard to developing nuclear technology and cooperate with them.

Iran’s nuclear chief made the remarks on Sunday while addressing a ceremony held in the southern port city of Bushehr to start construction of the second and third reactors of the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.

Noting that one of the main issues facing the Persian Gulf states in their efforts to build nuclear power plants is local contractors, Salehi said, “With regard to the Persian Gulf littoral states, which have adopted a new approach to the use of nuclear technology, the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready for scientific cooperation and transfer of experiences” to those countries.

He added that great achievement of building the Bushehr plant is that it has become completely indigenized six years after its inauguration. so that Installation of equipment and devices is currently being conducted by Iranian experts.

A high-ranking official at the AEOI said in October that the country’s nuclear activities have been entirely indigenized and the Islamic Republic has become self-sufficient in designing and manufacturing different types of centrifuge machines.

“One-hundred percent of Iran’s nuclear industry activities have been indigenized and today, we are self-sufficient in designing and manufacturing various kinds of centrifuges,” Ali Asghar Zare’an, special assistant to the AEOI head, said.

Elsewhere in his speech, Salehi said that the second and third units of Bushehr plant will be inaugurated in the next six to eight years.

“The inauguration of the new units will avert the annual emission of more than 21 million tonnes of pollutant gas,” Salehi said, adding that in power plants operating on fossil fuel, 11 million barrels of crude oil are required to generate 1,000 megawatts of electricity per year, while the three units of the Bushehr plant are expected to cut out the annual consumption of 33 million barrels of crude oil, which makes them economically feasible.

“If the oil price is currently set at 60 dollars per barrel, 660 million dollars will be saved annually. This is while some 70 million dollars are spent per annum to buy fuel and devices for the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant,” the AEOI chief said.

He noted that the construction of every power plant requires five billion dollars, saying, “The total revenue earned during the useful life of this power plant will amount to 660 billion dollars. As a result, the cost [of building the power plant] will be returned in a matter of six years and the remaining revenue will be added value.”

Meanwhile, Mahmoud Jafari, the contractor for the Bushehr Power Plant, told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that the excavation operation for the second unit of the plant started three years ago, while eight percent of the construction work for the third unit has already been completed.

He added that the construction of the second and third units of the plant will be finished in a period of 10 years in line with nuclear safety standards.

Jafari noted that the Nuclear Power Production & Development Company of Iran and Russia’s Atomstroyexport signed a contract for the construction of the second and third units of Bushehr plant some five years ago.

“The agreement includes the designing, construction, and inauguration of two units of nuclear reactors, each with a capacity to generate 1,057 megawatts of electric power,” the official added.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova in July affirmed her country’s resolve to keep up cooperation with Iran at the Bushehr plant, defying illegal US sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

She hailed the construction of the Bushehr plant as “the Russian flagship project in Iran” and noted that although US sanctions create hurdles for business ties with Iran, Russia “was not standing idle.”

The Russian-built 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in Bushehr, southern Iran, started operating in 2011 and reached its full capacity the following year.

In 2014, Russia signed a cooperation contract with Iran to help build the second and third Bushehr reactors, which are scheduled for launch in 2024 and 2026, respectively.

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