TEHERAN - Iran will shut down its five megawatt light-water research reactor in Teheran as soon as the 40-megawatt reactor in Arak goes operational, the news agency ISNA reported on Saturday. The head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Gholam-Reza Aqazadeh, told ISNA that the Teheran reactor should be shut down after almost forty years as soon as the Arak heavy-water reactor in Arak, south-east of the capital Teheran, becomes operational in 2009.
The heavy-water reactor in Arak was inaugurated last August to be, according to Iranian officials, mainly used for medical research purposes. The Arak project is one of IranÂ’s controversial nuclear sites, mainly because heavy-water reactors can also produce plutonium which can be used to make a nuclear bomb.
| Or to make plutonium for medicinal purposes. Everybody knows that. |
Aqazadeh said the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is fully aware of the activities in Arak and also supposed to even assist Iran in the project, but due to pressure by some Western states the IAEA might revise its promised assistance. With or without IAEA assistance, Iran would finish the Arak project as scheduled, said Aqazadeh. |