Speaking to the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) on Saturday, Salehi said several rounds of talks have been held between the deputy head of the AEOI, Behrouz Kamalvandi, and his Russian counterparts in Moscow or Tehran on the heavy water deal.
“The final steps to sell Russia 40 tons of the heavy water produced by our country have been taken and its contract will be signed soon,” he noted.
The Iranian official also said that either Kamalvandi will take a trip to Moscow to reach a conclusion on the deal or the Russians will come to Tehran to follow up on the issue.
Earlier this week, Russian Foreign Ministry’s Deputy Political Director Alexey Karpov said Moscow is prepared to buy heavy water from Iran in an attempt to assist Tehran meet its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear deal finalized between Iran and world powers in 2015.
Tehran does not have surplus heavy water stores at present, Karpov said at the second session of a joint commission meeting after implementation of the JCPOA in the Austrian city of Vienna.
The meeting, held at Coburg Hotel, was attended by representatives of Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).
“We are ready to assist Iran in this area through purchases of necessary amounts of this material, although this issue has not been discussed in detail so far,” the Russian diplomat added as cited by Sputnik.
Under the terms of the nuclear agreement, Iran should keep its stock of heavy water below 130 tons.
All nuclear-related sanctions imposed on Iran were terminated after Tehran and six world powers reached the nuclear agreement on July 14, 2015 and started implementing it on January 16.
