Three issues remain unresolved in talks on two credits for Iran - Storchak
MOSCOW. Feb 17 (Interfax) - Three issues remain unresolved in talks between Russia and Iran on Russia's providing loans for a railway and the reconstruction of a thermal power plant, Russian Deputy Finance Minister Sergei Storchak said.
"In principle the conditions on the two credits, which will be provided, for a railway and the reconstruction of a thermal power plant are identical and the same. We agreed upon practically everything. There are three open issues, due to which for now we are not reaching an official inter-agency agreement on the results of talks, for now they exist as agency understandings," he said.
The deputy minister said that the parties agreed to review these first two loans "as a pilot without reference to the number 5" ($5 billion).
"There is no approach connected with adoption of concrete obligations for a concrete sum with its representative for a concrete period. Iran is interested in investment relations, when there is the comprehensive development of something, in this case work on supplying four new turbines or blocks, and this is not one contract, formally one, but for it there will be ten other contracts, the same also for the railway. Well, if each project costs a billion, there is something to talk about," Storchak said.
He said that it is easier for Russia to administer each project individually and separately for each in order to plan budget spending, than to bind in one framework agreement.
Speaking about the timeframes for completing talks on the loans, Storchak said that now it is necessary to undergo intrastate procedures. "As we carry out intrastate procedures, so we will work further. As intrastate procedures are undergone, we will remove these three issues by correspondence and during this work," he said.
Earlier the Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanai said that during a visit of the Iranian economic ministry, the parties initialed documents on opening credits for a sum of $2.2 billion.
