Rasa News Agency reports - The Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Ali Akbar Salehi described the establishment of the Tehran Research Reactor control room as another breakthrough in the country’s nuclear energy program.
“This control room is the first research reactor control room that has been designed in Iran,” Salehi said on the sideline of Iran’s nuclear achievements exhibition on Wednesday.
He added that Iranian scientists have launched an Oxygen-18 isotope production unit at Arak nuclear facility.
Iran has announced that the Arak reactor, which uses natural uranium to produce radio medicine, is planned to gradually replace the Tehran Research Reactor to produce medical radioisotopes for cancer patients.
Salehi said Iran is seeking to produce stable radio isotopes which are commonly used in diverse industrial, medical and environmental fields.
The announcements come as Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said Iran’s nuclear research and development activities will never stop.
“Everybody should know that although negotiations [between Iran and world powers] are going on, the Islamic Republic of Iran's activities in the field of nuclear research and development will never stop…,” he said to Iran’s nuclear officials and experts in Tehran on Wednesday.
The latest round of high-level nuclear negotiations between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- the US, Britain, Russia, France and China -- plus Germany ended today in the Austrian capital, Vienna.
Iran and the six world powers reached an interim deal on November 24, 2013, in the Swiss city of Geneva. The deal took effect on January 20.