Baku, Azerbaijan, July 20
By Emil Ilgar – Trend:
Iranian government sets the environmental concerns as a priority in development projects, says President Hassan Rouhani.
“Once the environmental plans were considered as matters of luxury, but now the government sets the environmental concerns as a priority in development projects,” IRNA news agency quoted Rouhani as saying July 20 at an event in Tehran.
Lake Urmia
Rouhani was also quoted as saying that the Lake Urmia, which has suffered from rapid drought during past years, has reached a stable situation finally.
“Government has been attempting to prevent the lake from drying up, which would put the life of 14 million citizens under danger of salt storms,” he said.
Lake Urmia is in the northwest of Iran. Over 70 percent of its area has dried up. The water level has been declining since 1995. The lake’s area is about 6,000 square kilometers.
Lake Urmia needs 3.1 billion cubic meters of water per year to survive.
Euro 4 gasoline production
Rouhani also said that Iran’s Euro 4 gasoline production has increased by 10 times to 25 million liters per day, while gas production increased by 140 million cubic meters since mid 2013.
He said that increasing gas output led to lower liquid fuel consumption in power plants.
In 2013, the share of liquid fuels in power generation was above 40 percent, while the figure decreased below 20 percent the last year.
Rouhani also said the share of liquid fuels in power generation will decrease to 9 percent this fiscal year, which started on March 21.
Iran has increased gas deliveries to power plants from 36 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2013 to 58 bcm last year. The country has planned to supply 65 bcm of gas to power sector in the current fiscal year.
Nuclear deal
Elsewhere in his comments, Rouhani said Iran has become closer to international community after the nuclear deal reached July 14, 2015, between Iran, the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, plus Germany) and the European Union.
He said that for reaching a global peace “we should respect the various opinions and cultures, and demonstrate more tolerance.”