Iran is to start work in June on constructing a heavy water reactor that could be used as part of a fuel cycle to produce bomb-grade plutonium, diplomats said in Vienna. "Iran is to announce soon that it will be beginning work in June on a heavy water research reactor in Arak," 200 kilometres south-west of Tehran, a diplomat close to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said. IAEA director-general Mohamed ElBaradei returned to Vienna on Wednesday from Tehran, where he had hammered out an agreement for Iran to adhere to a timetable to finally answer charges it is trying secretly to develop nuclear weapons.
| They agreed on a time for the next meeting to discuss the minutes of the last meeting which they disagreed on. |
| They're fixin' to get ready to make plans to coordinate for a meeting to discuss whether they should take part in a session... |
The reactor to be built at Arak would not be in violation of safeguards which the IAEA enforces under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the diplomat said.
| I guess this falls under the Reactor Of Peace subsection of the treaty. Islamic nations only need apply. |
But he said it could send a bad political signal at a time the international community is calling on Iran to fully cooperate with the IAEA in proving its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, as Tehran claims. "This is not an accident," the diplomat said, referring to the fact that construction is to begin in June, the same month the IAEA will hold a board of governors meeting on Iran.
Iran has said the Arak reactor would be for research and the production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial use.
| "We're developing a system to treat cancer on a large scale, a whole city at a time." |
Iran told the IAEA, according to an agency report last November, that "it had tried to acquire a reactor from abroad to replace" a 30-year-old research reactor in Tehran. But due to sanctions, Iran was not able to buy a new reactor, and so wanted to build one of its own.
| I'm sure there's a section of the koran with plans for one. It's right after the section on building mud huts in a earthquake zone. |
The diplomat said, however, that the heavy water reactor, which would run on natural uranium, could produce depleted uranium which could then be reprocessed into plutonium.
| "Not that we plan on doing that, trust us." |
|