Iran flips ‘secondary’ circuit on Iran heavy water nuclear reactor, news agency reports

The report followed comments by Iran’s president that his country’s nuclear experts were testing a new type of advanced centrifuge.

By World Israel News Staff 

“The secondary circuit of the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor will be operational on Monday in the presence of Iran’s nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi,” according to the Iranian Mehr News Agency.

The report followed comments made last Wednesday by Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani that his country’s nuclear experts were testing a new type of advanced centrifuge.

“The Arak heavy water nuclear reactor, currently undergoing the process of modernization, consists of two circuits,” said Mehr.

“The first circuit is tasked with removing heat from the heart of the reactor, and the secondary circuit is responsible for transferring the heat from the first circuit to cooling towers and finally to the outside environment,” it reported.

“The secondary circuit of the Arak heavy water nuclear reactor, which will become operational today, includes heat exchangers, the middle pool, and transmission pumps,” the news agency added.

“The starting of the secondary circuit will not violate restrictions placed on Iran’s nuclear program under a 2015 deal with world powers, but shows Iran is continuing work to develop the reactor amid renewed tensions with the United States,” reported Reuters.

As part of the nuclear accord, Reuters notes, “the core of the Arak reactor was removed and filled with concrete to make it unusable, but Iran was able to continue to produce heavy water.”

The accord was reached between Tehran and six world powers: Russia, China, France, Germany, the U.K., and the U.S. Obama administration.

In May 2018, President Donald Trump announced that Washington was pulling out of the agreement on the grounds that it did not include enough safeguards against the development of an Iranian nuclear military program and because it did not address Iranian aggression in the region.

Voicing disappointment that Europe was not doing enough to save the nuclear agreement and to protect Iran from renewed U.S. sanctions, Iranian leaders vowed to continue to violate the nuclear accord through increased uranium enrichment.