And he added: “This material had already been removed from Iran, ensuring it would not be used to support the development of a nuclear weapon”.
Advertisement
Szubin focused on the merits and dangers of being tough with secondary sanctions that govern other countries’ transactions, and have become the latest flashpoint for concern as Iran seeks to cash in on the benefits of the nuclear deal. The sale is expected to be finalized between USA officials and Iran’s top nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araqchi, in Vienna on Friday morning.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said the heavy water purchase sets a “dangerous precedent”. U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said… “Far from curbing its nuclear program, this encourages Iran to produce more heavy water to sell with a stamp of USA approval on the global market”. He said the fate of the deal remains unknown and that the people of Iran have benefited nothing from the deal.
Iran has finalised a deal with USA companies to sell 32 metric tons of its heavy water, a senior Iranian official said on his Instagram page on Friday. He specifically asked how the USA would pay for the heavy water and what guarantees the administration had that the money wouldn’t be used by Tehran to fund its military or terrorist groups.
“The nuclear agreement with Iran may not be flawless but right now it’s helping make our world a safer place”.
Heavy water is used in some nuclear reactors and can be used to produce weapons-grade plutonium. They’ve got to figure it out.
But the Iranians have been overproducing. The only exceptions, he added, would be banks and companies blacklisted by US authorities.
“There are now opportunities for foreign banks to do business with Iran”, he said.
The State Department said the US would not lose sight of its concerns about Iran’s provocative actions, such as its recent ballistic missile tests.
About seven tons of heavy water was acquired years ago from DOE’s Savannah River Site in SC, but that was only a third of what was needed.
His remarks to this effect could, however, be regarded as self-contradictory insofar as he simultaneously emphasized the regime’s insistence that the United States expand upon implementation of the July 14 nuclear agreement by encouraging worldwide banks and European businesses to openly do business with the Islamic Republic. And so they shouldn’t also assume that activities still prohibited by the primary embargo are also prohibited for foreign actors. The Department of Energy, however, defended the decision in a statement.
The US expects the heavy water will be delivered to the US in the coming week, initially stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, and then resold at commercially reasonable prices to domestic commercial and research buyers, Trudeau said. “It was fortuitous in terms of timing”.
Speaking to reporters after his meeting with South African Energy Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson in Tehran on Saturday, Zanganeh expressed the hope that the two countries would sign the MoU on April 24. He called the availability of heavy water from Iran “fortuitous”.
Advertisement
Iran was India’s second biggest crude oil supplier before economic sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear programme hampered its trade relations with New Delhi. Iran also is committed to limiting its production of heavy water for the reactor for 15 years.
