"The issue of Arak heavy water reactor is almost over with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany)," Salehi told the Arabic language TV network, Al-Alam, on Saturday.
He explained that Iran has proposed the G5+1 to redesign the reactor, and the sextet have welcomed the offer. "Through this proposal, the amount of plutonium produced in the reactor will decrease to one-fifth, but the trend and volume of Iran's radioisotope production will remain the same."
As regards uranium enrichment to produce fuel for Iran's power reactors, the nuclear chief said, "We have also proposed to increase the number of centrifuges in a phase-to-phase manner in a bid to enable Iran to produce 30 tons of nuclear fuel for Bushehr nuclear power plant."
The AEOI chief reiterated that Iran's proposal stipulates that the number of centrifuges (the existing 20,000) should remain intact for a period of between 4 to 5 years.
He further stressed Iran's full compliance with its undertakings under the Geneva interim nuclear deal with the six world powers, and said that on April 12 Iran has completed the operations for reducing the uranium enrichment to the level of 5 percent from 20 percent.
The Iranian officials had earlier announced that launching the heavy water reactor in the Central city of Arak is among Iran’s redlines, adding that the installations are under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
The IAEA inspectors visited Arak heavy water reactor in December. During their visit to Iran, the IAEA inspectors held a meeting with the officials of the AEOI and then visited Arak heavy water installations.
Before the IAEA started its visits to the Arak Reactor, the AEOI announced in a statement that "the Islamic Republic of Iran, as a sign of goodwill to remove any possible ambiguity about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program, has given a positive response to the request made by the IAEA to visit the plant".
Last week a senior Iranian legislator underscored that Iran has no plans to relinquish the construction or operation of its Arak heavy water reactor.
"Arak reactor should remain in place and work with a heavy water reactor (technology)," Chairman of the parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Alaeddin Boroujerdi said.
Referring to the remarks recently made by Salehi that Iran is ready to change Arak reactor's structure to reduce the production of plutonium, he said the Tehran research reactor is passing its last days of its life and needs a substitute both for research and scientific work and for supplying the needed drugs for refractory diseases.
Meantime, Boroujerdi underlined that finding a substitute for Tehran research reactor doesn’t mean its closure, rather it means that the old reactor needs a complement.
In mid-November, Director-General of the IAEA Yukiya Amano and Salehi signed a joint statement which presented a roadmap for future cooperation to resolve the remaining issues between the two sides.
According to the statement, the IAEA and Iran agreed on November 11, 2013 to strengthen their cooperation and dialogue aimed at ensuring the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear program through the resolution of all outstanding issues that have not already been resolved by the IAEA.
