Iran has shipped it's Uranium stockpiles to Russia under Nuclear deal
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MOSCOW: Iran sent a major shipment of low-enriched uranium materials to Russia on Monday, a key step in Tehran's implementation of this year's historic nuclear accord with world powers.
The United States hailed the move, which Secretary of State John Kerry said marked "significant progress" in Tehran's fulfillment of a deal to stop it developing nuclear weapons.
The Russian foreign ministry confirmed the report after Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, told the ISNA news agency: "The fuel exchange process has taken place."
According to ISNA's report, Iran sent 8.5 tonnes of low-enriched nuclear material to Russia and received about 140 tonnes of natural uranium in return.
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner described the cargo as a 12.5 tonne "combination of forms of low-enriched uranium materials" including five and 20 percent enriched uranium, scrap metal, and unfinished fuel plates.
"So that actually constitutes, I think, almost all of Iran's current stockpile of enriched uranium," Toner said.
Under the deal struck in July in Vienna between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers, Tehran agreed to cut its low-enriched uranium (LEU) stockpile to less than 300kg.(Moscow Times)
