BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 23. Iran officially started the uranium discovery operation in the West Azerbaijan Province, located in the north-west of the country, on October 23, 2023, Trend reports.
The work is being carried out at the Dilakverdi uranium mine in the Chaldoran County.
Vice President of Iran and the chief of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, along with other senior officials, attended an event to mark the occasion.
Javad Ahmadi, the deputy chief of the AEOI, said at the event that a mining complex and a uranium processing plant would be constructed in three years with a budget of 50 trillion rials (about $1.19 billion).
Ahmadi also said that the research work in the mining complex had begun in 2021 and some drilling operations had been done. So far, about 2 trillion rials (about $47.6 million) had been spent.
He added that the research results showed that there were around 500,000 tons of uranium ore and other minerals in the mining complex.
The deputy emphasized that as per the plan, the infrastructure would be built in 18 months and a test of uranium ore processing would be conducted. The processing plant would be completed in the next 18 months. Then, the processing of uranium and its associated minerals would start in the area.
Iran has been looking for different ways to resume negotiations with other parties on its nuclear issue and restore the JCPOA. Iran’s main objectives are to lift the sanctions imposed by the US and Western countries, access its frozen funds abroad, and restart its crude oil exports.
Iran asserts that its nuclear program is only for peaceful use, but the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports that Iran has increased its highly enriched uranium by 27 percent in the last three months and now has 4,745 kilograms of enriched uranium. This is 15 times more than what Iran is allowed to have under the JCPOA.
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