The remarks were made by head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in an interview with IRIB’s channel 2 on Saturday night. Emphasizing that Iran is making advancements in the areas of discovery and extraction, Salehi added “73 per cent of the country has been covered while the rest will be carried out in two years’ time.”
He deemed discovery and extraction as the most strategic aspects of the nuclear industry noting that JCPOA perceives no limitations with regard to production of raw materials.
“We are conducting research and development on eight centrifuges in addition to medical centrifuges,” noted the official asserting “we possessed 20 thousand machines of which 10 thousand were active; however, the number was cut down to six thousand following the JCPOA implementation of which only five thousand are making enrichments.”
Salehi further touched upon several other ongoing activities in the nuclear fields including placement of heavy water in Tehran reactor, redesigning of Arak heavy water reactor as well as inking contracts with Russians on Bushehr and Ghodrat reactors which will become operational.
He also referred to the establishment of a nuclear hospital for which the required equipment will be purchased from Austria to mark a unique and distinguished hospital in the west of Asia.
“The redesigning of Arak reactor will be carried out by a working group of Iranian, Chinese and American experts though Iran will undertake the designing aspect which indicates escalation of the country’s technical and scientific capabilities,” AEOI head underlined.
Salehi referred to the sale of heavy water to American laboratories as another sign of high quality of the country’s nuclear industry.
He further estimated that the agreement with China on Arak reactor will be sealed in one or two months.
Ali Akbar Salehi touched upon AEOI’s cooperation with Russia over stable isotopes in Fordow site; “the Russian side is potently pursuing activities as the construction of a new site will begin in Fordow in the next few weeks.”
The official noted that AEOI possesses 12 to 15 thousand man power and that the organization’s budget had been completely supplied in the previous Iranian calendar year.
Salehi further announced the plan to cooperate with universities by equipping their laboratories to facilitate the studying conditions for 150 to 200 nuclear students who graduate annually.
“The 10-year plan of AEOI has been defined and our path is clear while previously some of the decisions were made subjectively,” he continued asserting “we are now decided on what centrifuges to work on and what countries to cooperate with.”
Salehi went on to stress that “we will work on five thousand devised for the next ten years before achieving a production of 15 thousand in 15 years with an appropriate slope.”
“Arak reactor will be completely redesigned in the next three or four years turning into a modern reactor to the interest of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” highlighted AEOI head.
Salehi pointed out that appropriate human resources have been trained for the fusion stage; “project-based fusion step marks human’s latest effort to achieve continuous energy production though it might yield results in the next 30 to 40 years.”
“Fortunately, we enjoy the upper hand in technical aspects of JCPOA,” maintained the official adding “the issues raised by Americans on inspections merely mean to convince the parties inside the United States.”
Salehi said AEOI has inked contracts with the industry sector in order to reduce the price of uranium extracted from mines by simultaneous extraction of very expensive rare earth elements.
Reiterating that only three world countries enjoy rare earth elements, head of AEOI concluded “in the current year, Iran will produce rare earth elements which can be used for both domestic consumption as well as for exports.”
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