The Nigerien delegation met with various Russian partners, both private and public, who are interested in exploring and extracting natural resources in Niger, including uranium, Niger's Mines Minister Ousmane Abarchi told Sputnik on the sidelines of the first ministerial conference of the Russia-Africa Partnership Forum in Russia's Sochi, noting that these discussions included the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources.
"In fact, we had to take a look at all cooperation in the mining sector, whether it is exploration, exploitation or even the development or marketing of mining products," he noted.
The minister noted that the delegates "considered the future of this cooperation in order to strengthen and diversify it."
Abarchi also stated that the West often contradicts itself regarding the issues of the mining sphere.
"They actually accused us of having signed a contract to sell uranate to Iran, [...] and a few months later they themselves withdrew their claim, again through their company Orano, which complained that it could no longer export and sell Somaïr's production. And they themselves admitted this very recently, and that's why they said that production should be suspended because they [...] are no longer selling their product," he said.
Abarchi concluded that if Niger "had a sales contract with the Islamic Republic of Iran, it would have been known. The company, Somaïr, should not have been in trouble because of not selling or not exporting its product."