Rosatom To Develop Measures To Facilitate Resumption Of Repurpose Work At Fordow - Ryabkov

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2019) Rosatom's specialists will develop measures that will help resume repurposing work at Iran's Fordow nuclear facility, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Friday.

Russia's TVEL nuclear fuel company, a subsidiary of Rosatom state nuclear corporation, said Thursday it had suspended a project to repurpose activities at Iran's Fordow nuclear plant due to the start of uranium enrichment at the facility.

According to Ryabkov, gas infusion in the cascades, which are located in the same hall where repurposing work for the production of stable isotopes was supposed to be carried out, violated the originally developed version of the reconfiguration.

"It will take us some time to assess the consequences of this, perhaps to develop certain technological solutions, but this is inevitably fraught with delay," Ryabkov said after the meeting of the joint commission on the implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the Iranian nuclear program in Vienna earlier in the day.

"We stated at the meeting that we are taking a pause, but we are not giving up on the project," Ryabkov emphasized.

TVEL specialists, in accordance with the JCPOA, have been working on the project to modify two cascades of gas centrifuges at the Fordow plant to enable production of stable (non-radioactive) tellurium and xenon isotopes for medical purposes since 2017.