Seventy-six European leaders from 20 countries have called on the US Administration to preserve the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran. In a statement issued by the European Leadership Network think tank, they also urge the JCPOA's European signatories to make clear their continued support for the nuclear deal.

Rosatom and its subsidiaries yesterday signed agreements with a number of governments, companies and universities during the IX AtomExpo International Forum it is hosting this week in Moscow.

China and Iran have signed the first commercial contract for the reconstruction of Iran's Arak heavy water reactor. The core of the reactor was removed as part of an international agreement limiting Iran's nuclear program in return for the lifting of economic sanctions.

The European Commission announced yesterday it has signed the first-ever project for nuclear safety cooperation with Iran, under the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreed between Iran and the E3/EU+3 countries in July 2015. The project is the first of a €5.0 million ($5.4 million) action approved by the European Union in 2016 under the Instrument for Nuclear Safety Cooperation. A second project for the stress test at the Bushehr nuclear power plant is to be signed in the coming weeks.

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and Zsolt Semjén, the Hungarian deputy prime minister, have signed a memorandum of understanding that includes collaboration between the two countries on designing small nuclear power plants as well as an €85 million investment by Hungarian banks in Iran. Reuters reported that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Mihály Orbán's chief of staff, Janos Lazar, had told a news conference on 6 April the MOU concerned establishment of a small nuclear reactor for scientific-educational purposes.

Construction and installation work formally started yesterday at the site of unit 2 of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, Atomproekt, the reactor design subsidiary of Russian state nuclear corporation Rosatom, announced today. The first foundation stone for units 2 and 3 of the plant was laid in a ceremony held at the construction site in southern Iran in September last year.

Iran has for the first time injected uranium hexafluoride gas into its IR-8 uranium enrichment centrifuges. The development of the next-generation centrifuges is being carried out within the framework of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran said.

Russia and Iran yesterday signed documents furthering their cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. They were signed in Moscow by Nikolay Spassky, deputy director general for international affairs at Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear corporation, and Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran for International, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.

One year on from implementation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the US president said the agreement with Iran "must be measured against the alternatives". Meanwhile, Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran for International, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, is on a two-day visit to Moscow to discuss progress with the JCPOA.

The impartiality of the International Atomic Energy Agency was "indispensable" to the high-level political agreement reached last year on Iran's nuclear-related activities, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told delegates at the Agency's 60th General Conference in Vienna yesterday.

Iran is ready to share its nuclear experience with other nations in the Persian Gulf through a regional nuclear scientific contact group, Atomic Energy Organization of Iran president Ali Akbar Salehi told the World Nuclear Association's Annual Symposium today.

The first foundation stone for units 2 and 3 of the Bushehr nuclear power plant has been laid in a ceremony held at the construction site in southern Iran.