IAEA inspectors visit Iran’s Arak heavy water facility

Monitoring is part of the interim nuclear agreement signed by Iran and Western powers last month

By AP 8 December 2013, 12:35 pm

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Iran's heavy water nuclear facilities near the central city of Arak, 150 miles (240 kilometers) southwest of Tehran (photo credit: AP/ISNA/Hamid Foroutan/File)

TEHRAN — Iranian state TV reported that inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog have visited Sunday a heavy water production plant that Iran agreed to open to inspection last month.

The report quotes Behrouz Kamalvandi, who is spokesman of Iran’s nuclear department, as saying the two inspectors were at Arak heavy water production plant, some 250 kilometers (150 miles) southwest of Tehran.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, have visited the site twice over the past years.

Last month Iran agreed to allow expanded UN monitoring at the country’s nuclear sites, including the Arak site where plans for commissioning a plutonium reactor have been suspended under a separate interim deal reached with world powers.

The US and its allies fear that Iran may finally be trying to develop a nuclear weapon, a charge Tehran denies.