TOP nuclear official Ali Akbar Salehi revealed yesterday that workers have begun redesigning Iran’s nearly completed Arak heavy water reactor to limit the amount of plutonium.

The work, which forms part of an interim deal with world powers over its nuclear programme, will delay the reactor’s launch by about three years.

Iran has offered to redesign it to produce only a fifth of the plutonium it could have made.

However, hardline western powers have demanded that Iran replace the Arak reactor totally with one able to make only minuscule amounts of plutonium.

Iran has opposed that, saying a heavy water reactor is needed to produce medical radioisotopes while its light water reactor at Bushehr is used to generate electricity.

Negotiators struck an interim deal last year that saw Iran agree to limit uranium enrichment in return for some economic sanctions being lifted.

They now face a November deadline to come to a final deal.