US backs Iran claim that some work OK at Arak site

                 
The US said Iran can undertake some construction work at a key nuclear facility as long as fuel isn't produced and advances aren't made on a planned heavy water reactor.                  

The Arak site was among the thorniest issues negotiators sought to resolve in last weekend's nuclear agreement in Geneva.                  

The White House said afterward Iran wouldn't advance its "activities" at Arak or progress toward plutonium production. It spelled out several more constraints.       
        
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Wednesday while his country was honoring the deal, construction on building projects would continue.   
             
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she isn't sure what work Zarif meant. She said road or building work might be allowable. But nuclear fuel production, reactor work, testing, control systems advances and other activities aren't permissible.            

Iran said it would not make "any further advances of its activities" on the Arak reactor, according to text of the agreement.            

"The capacity at the Arak site is not going to increase. It means no new nuclear fuel will be produced and no new installations will be installed, but construction will continue there," Zarif told parliament in translated comments broadcast on Iran's Press TV.               

But experts have said an apparent gap in the text could allow Tehran to build components off-site to install later in the nuclear reactor. It was not immediately clear if Zarif was referring to this or other construction activity.            

Tehran has said it could open the reactor as soon as next year. It says its purpose is only to make medical isotopes, but Western countries say it could also produce plutonium, one of two materials, along with enriched uranium, that can be used to make the fissile core of a nuclear bomb.            

Meanwhile, hard-line Iranian politicians publicly criticized the deal reached in Geneva last week over the Islamic Republic's nuclear program, an agreement that has largely been welcomed by Iranians.            

Hard-line lawmaker Ruhollah Hosseinian said the deal was so vague and conditional that it may finally lead to a shutting down of Iran's uranium enrichment program. Hamid Rasaei, another hard-line legislator, has called it "a poison chalice."            

Most lawmakers supported the deal, saying it eases sanctions that world powers have placed on Iran and prevents them from imposing new ones. Discussions about it were broadcast live on state radio as Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif briefed lawmakers on it.         

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, has publicly supported the country's nuclear negotiators. Yet, it has not stopped hardliners from criticizing the agreement.                 


REUTERS/AP