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Armenia Offered To Buy Iranian Nuclear Fuel


Iran -- The newly inaugurated fuel manufacturing plant in the central province of Isfahan, 09Apr2009
Iran -- The newly inaugurated fuel manufacturing plant in the central province of Isfahan, 09Apr2009

Officials in Iran have offered to deliver nuclear fuel to Armenia’s Metsamor nuclear power station, an Armenian regional governor who visited the Islamic Republic recently confirmed on Tuesday.

Ashot Ghahramanian, governor of the southern Armavir region, traveled to Iran’s Western Azerbaijan province and met with its governor, Rahim Qorbani, late last week to discuss ways of boosting ties between the two territories.

“In light of mastering the nuclear enrichment technology… the Islamic Republic of Iran is now ready to provide nuclear fuel for the neighboring countries’ power plants,” “The Tehran Times” daily quoted Qorbani as saying at the meeting.

Ghahramanian confirmed the information, saying that the offer was made after he mentioned the fact that Metsamor is located in Armavir and that the Armenian government plans to replace its aging reactor by a new and more powerful facility by 2017. “I replied that this issue is not within my area of responsibility,” he told RFE/RL. “It is dealt with by the government and the Energy Ministry and can not be a subject of our discussion.”

The Armenian Energy Ministry insisted that it has never discussed the possibility of nuclear fuel supplies from Iranian officials. “Armenia has received no official offers of nuclear fuel supplies from Iran, and no such discussions are taking place at the moment,” said Shakeh Arakelian, a ministry spokeswoman.

Armenia -- The Metsamor nuclear plant.
The Metsamor plant has received enriched uranium from Russia ever since it was built in the late 1970s. The situation might change after the planned development of Armenia’s uranium reserves by a Russian-Armenian joint venture set up a year ago. Sergei Kirienko, head of Russia’s Federal Agency on Atomic Energy, had said earlier that Armenia could become one of the few countries of the world with a full uranium production cycle from extraction of the metal to its transformation into nuclear fuel.

Iran’s nuclear program has been under international scrutiny over the past decade, with the United States and other Western powers accusing Tehran of seeking to develop nuclear weapons. The Iranian leadership insists that it wants to use atomic energy for only peaceful purposes.
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