22 August 2018•Update: 24 August 2018
By Menna Ahmed and Mahmoud Barakat
ANKARA
The U.K. will help Iran modify its Arak nuclear reactor after the U.S. withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers earlier this year, Iranian officials announced Wednesday.
“The U.K. has replaced the U.S. in a working group tasked with modifying the Arak heavy reactor,” Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Agency, was quoted as saying by Iran’s Mehr News Agency.
In mid-2015, Iran signed the landmark nuclear deal with the P5+1 group of nations (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany).
The agreement had placed tight restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief.
In May of this year, however, U.S. President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew his country from the agreement, which he had earlier described as the “worst deal ever”.
Under the agreement’s terms, U.S. and Chinese experts had been tasked with modifying Iran’s heavy-water Arak reactor with a view to reducing its plutonium yield.
