Iran Installs Reactor Vessel at Heavy Water Site
Iran on Sunday took a "major step forward" at its under-construction heavy water reactor in the central town of Arak by installing the reactor vessel at the site, media reports said.
The development comes in spite of numerous rounds of U.N. and Western sanctions designed at cutting off Iran's access to nuclear technology.
"The installation is a major step in the progress of this project," the state broadcaster quoted nuclear chief Fereydoon Abbasi Davani as saying.
Western countries fear the reactor could provide the Islamic republic with plutonium if the fuel is reprocessed. Highly enriched uranium and plutonium can both be used in a nuclear weapon.
"We will test the reactor with virtual fuel" by March 2014, Abbasi Davani said in remarks reported by the ISNA news agency.
Iran has told the International Atomic Energy Organization (IAEA) that the reactor will become operational in the third quarter of 2014.
The Vienna-based agency last month outlined further progress at the reactor.
The U.S. ambassador to IAEA, Joseph MacManus, said on Tuesday that Iran had failed to provide the U.N. nuclear watchdog with detailed design information on the IR-40 reactor since 2006, calling this a "basic requirement."
Iran's IAEA ambassador, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, reacted by saying that agency inspectors could visit the reactor.
Tehran says it plans to use the reactor to produce mainly medical isotopes, and does not intend to reprocess the fuel in order to extract plutonium.
The IAEA also wants to shed light on Iran's previous nuclear activities amid strong suspicions that they were directed at production of atomic weapon.
In parallel efforts, six world powers - the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany- have tried to force Iran to cut back on its nuclear drive. Their ongoing talks with Tehran have failed to yield any breakthrough.
Source: Agence France Presse
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