Iran has neutralized the sabotage at its IR-40 nuclear site, the Mehr News Agency quoted Ali Asghar Zare’an, an official at the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, as saying on March 15.
Zare’an made the statement on the sidelines of a ceremony for inaugurating specialized laboratories to counter industrial sabotage.
IR-40 is a 40 megawatt heavy water reactor which is being constructed in the Iranian city of Arak.
Iran decided to build the heavy water reactor in the mid-1990s. Arak IR-40 is designed to run on uranium oxide fuel produced at the Esfahan conversion and fuel fabrication facilities.
Iran has indicated they do not intend to reprocess IR-40 spent fuel to recover weapons-grade plutonium, nor operate under a low burnup regime that could produce weapons-grade plutonium.
Originally a hot cell facility at the Arak site was planned, described as capable of handling irradiated fuel and targets (such as targets for production of medical radioisotopes) from the IR-40, but in 2004 plans for hot cells at Arak were removed.
