TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Iran told the U.N. nuclear watchdog on Tuesday it would ship 20 tonnes of heavy water abroad to avoid breaching a limit on its stock of that substance under a landmark deal with P5+1, officials said.
TEHRAN, Young Journalists Club (YJC) - Heavy water is a moderator used in a type of reactor that can produce plutonium. Tehran's stock of it is restricted to 130 tonnes under its 2015 deal with the countries.
Iran has already breached that limit twice since the deal imposed restrictions on its nuclear activities in January last year, when sanctions against Tehran were also lifted under the agreement.
The deal calls for Iran's excessheavy water to be sold to a foreign buyer. Washington and its allies have accepted that it be shipped to Oman while a buyer is sought, which is what Iran did last year.
"Twenty metric tonnes of its stock of heavy water will be transferred out of the country," said one official who attended an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting at which the U.N. watchdog said Tehran had informed it of the plan on Tuesday, Reuters reported.
The IAEA did not specify where the heavy water would be transferred to or when that would happen, but it said it would be soon, three officials who attended the meeting said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. There was no mention of a buyer.