Tehran, Athens to resume gas talks this week

TEHRAN,May 28(MNA) - Iran and Greece will hold talks in Athens this week on exporting Iranian gas to the European country. Concurrent with the official announcement of the Turkish government to transit Iranian gas to Europe, Iran and Greece will resume gas talks. Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi said in February that Iran may sign gas export deals with Greece. He added that the Swiss EGL Company is still in talks with Iran over importing gas from the Islamic Republic. Hossein Bidarmaghz, the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) managing director, said in October 2011 that technical issues are the main reason behind the delayed sales of Iran's natural gas to the European company. The Swiss gas contract, one of Iran's biggest gas deals ever, was signed by EGL and NIGEC in March 2008. Based on the 25-year contract, Iran was supposed to start sending gas to Switzerland in 2009, exporting an annual total of 500 million cubic meters of gas to the European country in the first phase. The figure was to rise to 5 billion cu. m. by 2012.