Injecting Gas into IR5 Centrifuges No Violation of Iran’s Undertakings

(FNA)- Spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Behrouz Kamalvandi dismissed a US think-tank report that Iran has violated its undertakings by injecting gas into its home-made IR5 centrifuges.

"Iran has violated neither its safeguards undertakings nor the Joint Plan of Action (the Geneva agreement) which was inked in Geneva last year because Iran can repeatedly inject gas not only into one machine (centrifuge) but also into a cascade and continue its R&D activities," Kamalvandi told FNA in Tehran on Sunday.

His remarks alluded to a recent alleged report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) which claimed that “Iran may have violated (the interim deal with world powers) by starting to feed (natural uranium gas) into one of its advanced centrifuges, namely the IR-5 centrifuge”.

“Under the interim deal, this centrifuge should not have been fed with (gas) as reported in this safeguards report,” the ISIS claimed in an analysis of the confidential report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued Friday to member states.

Based on the report, the IR-5 is a new centrifuge that Iran has been seeking to develop to replace the old IR-1 model. Tehran has built only one such machine so far.

Elsewhere, Kamalvandi referred to the trend of talks between Iran and the IAEA, and said the Agency sent a letter to Tehran last year and proposed a new date for holding a meeting, adding that the letter is under study by Iran, but no agreement has yet been made.

In relevant remarks in September, Kamalvandi underscored the country's cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency beyond the safeguards agreements between the two sides, and called on the IAEA to announce the results of this cooperation.

"It has been announced several times that the Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to cooperate with the IAEA in different aspects and now Iran's cooperation is beyond the safeguard undertakings and therefore it is expected that the IAEA officials will pay attention to this issue and announce the results of this cooperation," Kamalvandi said in an interview with the state-run TV.

He underlined the positive cooperation between Iran and the IAEA, and said Director-General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano has stressed in his reports that Iran has cooperated with the UN nuclear watchdog both within the framework of the negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) and the joint statement with the UN nuclear watchdog agency.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran favors accelerating the negotiations since all Iran's nuclear activities are peaceful," Kamalvandi said.