MOSCOW, July 12 (RIA Novosti) - Russia is interested in developing economic relations with Iran, a Russian senior official said Tuesday.
"We are very interested in cooperation in oil and gas production, railroad building, the launch of the Zohreh satellite, the construction of pipelines and also in the foodstuffs and light goods industries," said Alexander Rumyantsev, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Nuclear Power and co-chairman of the Russian-Iranian intergovernmental cooperation commission.
He said that the election of the new Iranian president would not affect bilateral cooperation.
"An intergovernmental agreement regulates our cooperation with Iran and the change of leadership will not affect Russian-Iranian cooperation," Rumyantsev said.
The new Iranian president said he intends to develop cooperation with Russia, Rumyantsev said.
He said the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran will be launched in late 2006.
"The return of spent nuclear fuel [from Iran] is a very beneficial project," Rumyantsev said, adding that SNF reprocessing and storage costs $1,000-2,000 per kilogram.
He also said that countries lacking a developed nuclear power sector will not gain anything by developing a nuclear fuel cycle themselves. He said countries like Iran should "buy fuel and return SNF," Rumyantsev said.
