Renovation of Iran’s Heavy Water Reactor in 2nd Phase: Spokesman

Iran has entered the second phase of redesigning the core of the reactor in Arak for a month, which has been renamed Khandab heavy water reactor, ICANA quoted Behrouz Kamalvandi as saying.

He explained that 90 percent of components of the reactor would be excluded from the process of redesigning, saying only 10 percent of Khandab heavy water reactor would be renovated.

Kamalvandi then emphasized that Iran is going on with the renovation process on schedule, saying it took 14 months for the country to finish the designing job during the first phase.

He also noted that China has verified that Iran has completed the first phase of redesigning flawlessly.

In April, Iran and China signed the final version of a contract to modernize the heavy water reactor that Tehran had undertaken to redesign under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement between Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi had announced earlier that the responsibility to design the reactor and its equipment lies only with Iran, while China and the US would evaluate the designing plan scientifically once it is over.

Iran and the Group 5+1 (also known as the E3+3) reached a conclusion on the JCPOA in July 2015 and started to implement it in January 2016.

According to the accord, “Iran will redesign and rebuild a modernised heavy water research reactor in Arak, based on an agreed conceptual design, using fuel enriched up to 3.67 %, in a form of an international partnership which will certify the final design.”

In November 2015, the document on redesigning the heavy water reactor was signed by all parties to the JCPOA.