Iran’s ambassador to Moscow on Monday said Russia could build the Islamic republic a second nuclear power reactor under a proposed oil-for-goods swap that has raised grave concern in Washington.
Ambassador Mehdi Sanaei said the two close trading partners have been negotiating Iran’s delivery of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day since a meeting at a regional summit in September between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Hassan Rouhani.
Russian officials have neither confirmed nor denied the discussions while stressing that they would not break existing UN sanctions on the Islamic state. But Washington and the European Union have imposed their own restrictions over Tehran’s disputed nuclear programme that also penalise countries and companies dealing in certain areas with Iran.
The White House has raised “serious concern” about the potential deal — which one Russian report said involved the delivery of 500,000 barrels of crude per day — because it would boost Iran’s oil exports by more than 50 per cent.
Iran’s crude shipments are believed to have shrunk under the impact of the unilateral Western sanctions to less than one million barrels per day from the 2.5-million-barrel figure they reached in late 2011.