Russia's consul-general in Iran's Northern city of Rasht said the recent meeting between the Iranian and Russian presidents left much positive effects on the bilateral ties between the two countries.

Maxim Paranov said during the meeting in Moscow, Ahmadinejad and Putin raised similar views, specially on the expansion of the relations between Tehran and Moscow, underlining that their countries as major world gas exporters shared joint interests.

"At the meeting, Putin was willing to discuss regional issues as well as the measures taken for the further expansion of trade between Iran and Russia, and underlined that the two countries as two Caspian neighbors have shared interests," added the envoy.

The Russian consul-general further pointed to Ahmadinejad's remarks at the meeting, and said the Iranian president shared Putin's views.

"Yet, the Iranian president laid special emphasis on the bolstering of Iran-Russia cooperation in nuclear power plant construction," he stated.

According to Paranov, Ahmadinejad had told Putin that the two nations "can expand their cooperation to build new nuclear power plants" and that such an agenda of cooperation was waiting for Putin's order to be put into action.

The Iranian President was in Moscow this week to meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the 2nd summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF).

At the meeting in the Kremlin on Tuesday morning, Ahmadinejad underlined the need for the expansion of cooperation between Iran and Russia, specially in nuclear fields, saying that preliminary talks have been held with Russian officials on the construction of new nuclear power plants in Iran.

Ahmadinejad further said that the Bushehr nuclear power plant is a symbol of “constructive cooperation” between Tehran and Moscow, adding both sides can develop this model and construct new power plants.

Iran signed a deal with Russia in 1995, according to which the plant was originally scheduled for completion in 1999. However, the project was repeatedly delayed by the Russian side due to the intense pressure exerted on Moscow by the United States and its western allies. Russia finally completed physical construction of the plant last summer, but the facility still needed one more year to gradually reach full power generation capacity.

On October 26, 2010, Iran started injecting fuel into the core of the Bushehr nuclear power plant in the initial phase of launching the nuclear reactor.

The Bushehr nuclear power plant's utmost power for the generation of electricity is 1,000mw.

In 2011 Iran started using 500MW of nuclear-generated electricity, half the nominal capacity of the Bushehr power plant.

Iran held a ceremony in September 2012 to mark the preliminary launch of the Bushehr plant.

The facility operates under the full supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
 

News ID 184972