MOSCOW, May 18 (RIA Novosti) – Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad is expected to visit Russia in July to attend the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), a spokesman for Iran’s Embassy in Moscow said on Saturday.
The Iranian leader has accepted Russia’s invitation to attend the event. “Now we are working on this visit, but the final decision has yet to be made,” the spokesman told RIA Novosti.
Moscow hosts the Gas Exporting Countries Forum on July 1-2.
The Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a gas equivalent of the oil cartel OPEC, which controls over 70 percent of the world's natural gas reserves and more than 80 percent of the liquefied natural gas production, was founded in 2001 in Tehran.
The forum was legally established on December 2008 in Moscow where energy ministers of its member countries adopted the forum's charter and signed an intergovernmental agreement.
The forum comprises Algeria, Bolivia, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Venezuela. The Netherlands, Norway and Kazakhstan have the status of observers.
