Zimbabwe uranium deal with Iran, Western media fiction: Harare

Zimbabwean Mining Minister Obert Mpofu has rejected reports about signing an agreement to sell uranium to Iran as “fiction and wishful thinking” of Western media.

“We are free to trade with any country but my ministry has not signed an agreement about uranium with Tehran,” Mpofu said on Saturday.

“It is fiction and usual wishful thinking of the Western media. Why would we have a secret deal when we are a free country,” he added.

The UK daily The Times had earlier quoted Zimbabwean Deputy Mining Minister Gift Chimanikire as saying that Harare had signed a uranium deal with Iran.

Chimanikire himself has denied the report, saying that, “We are not selling or marketing any uranium to anyone at all, so we cannot talk of shipments to anyone.”

“We signed a MoU with Iran, which covers various agreements in mineral trading such as diamonds, gold and other minerals… We have no capacity to handle uranium as a country, and besides we don’t even know the quantity of uranium deposits viable for mining,” Chimanikire said.

The state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corp. has also rejected the report, saying the country is not planning to export uranium to any other state.

“There is no shipment or plans to ship uranium to Iran whatsoever. We are not even considering anything like that or planning to ship anything,” Zimbabwe Mining Chairman Florence Gowora said.

“It’s very unfortunate that Zimbabwe is being linked to something it does not have or will have in the foreseeable future,” Gowora added.