Iran completes diluting 20% enriched uranium: AEOI

Iran has finished diluting half of its stockpile of 20-percent enriched uranium to five-percent purity and is to convert the rest to uranium oxide, an Iran nuclear official says.

Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said on Sunday that the dilution of enriched uranium is in line with a landmark nuclear deal Iran signed with six world powers in Geneva late last year.

“As per the Geneva agreement, we have to dilute half of the 209 kilograms of 20-percent enriched uranium and oxidize the other half,” he said.

Kamalvandi added that Iran has just finished the dilution process and has three months to convert the remaining half to uranium oxide.

The uranium oxidization process “has not yet started and the reason for this delay is that its production line is not ready,” he said.

On Thursday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran is complying with the terms of its nuclear agreement with six world powers.

Iran and the six world powers – the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany – sealed an interim deal in Geneva on November 24, 2013 to pave the way for the full resolution of the decade-old dispute with Iran over the country’s nuclear energy program. The deal came into force on January 20.

Under the Geneva deal, dubbed the Joint Plan of Action, the six countries have undertaken to provide Iran with some sanctions relief in exchange for the Islamic Republic agreeing to limit certain aspects of its nuclear activities during a six-month period.

KA/HMV/SL

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