Iran Unlikely To Go Back To Arak Nuclear Reactor's Original Design - US State Department

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 28th May, 2020) Iran is unlikely to ever go back to the Arak nuclear reactor's original design to produce weapons-grade plutonium since it would be highly costly and Tehran is still "notably measured" in building up its nuclear capabilities, Christopher Ford, the US assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, has said.

On Wednesday, the United States announced that it was suspending sanctions waivers that allowed foreign companies to work on Iran deal-related nuclear projects, including the Arak reactor conversion. The only exception is Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant Unit 1. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran was obligated to redesign Arak to conduct non-military nuclear research. Following the US withdrawal from the deal in 2018, the United Kingdom and China took charge of upgrading the reactor in Arak.

"The Arak reactor project - our assessment at this point is that going back to the original design would take them quite a few years and a great deal of money that ... frankly they don't have right now. It's also not entirely clear they have the expertise in-country to do this on their own," Ford said at a briefing on Wednesday, as quoted by the Department of State.

The assistant secretary added that there had been "persistent rumors that they may have gotten some foreign assistance" to do this.

According to Ford, the United States would do its best to "ensure that that did not occur if they were to try to go back to that original design."

"[The reactor] actually wasn't terribly advanced at the time of the nuclear deal, and at this point it is even less advanced because the calandria at the reactor vessel core has been, as part of the redesign project, extracted and filled with concrete. So they would be starting from scratch," he explained.

Moreover, attempts to build a plutonium production reactor would be an "extraordinarily provocative thing to do." According to Ford, Tehran "has been notably measured in building up its nuclear capabilities, even in - even though these are violations of its JCPOA commitments" and does not want to antagonize the remaining signatories to the nuclear deal, namely the European Union, Russia and China.

"It's been fairly measured in its responses even on other aspects, and so going back to the full-scale pursuit of a plutonium production reactor would be an extraordinary provocation that I think is relatively unlikely for them to undertake even if they had the money with which to do so," he stated.

The diplomat added that "no one can forget" about an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor in Syria 2007, which he described as a signal to anyone seeking to build a plutonium production reactor.