The head of Russia’s nuclear agency Rosatom will visit Iran on December 11 to discuss economic cooperation between the two countries.

A Rosatom spokesman said Sergei Kiriyenko would attend a meeting of the inter-governmental commission on economic relations in Tehran.

Iran’s representative on the commission is Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Rosatom said in a statement.

The international news agency reported that Kiriyenko would not be visiting the Bushehr nuclear power station, which Russia has been building in the south of the country — a project criticized by the United States.

The visit comes as Russia has grown more critical of Iran’s nuclear program, despite long-standing economic and political ties between the two countries.

The United States has tried to persuade Russia to take a firmer line on Iran’s nuclear ambitions as part of a wider diplomatic drive to bring pressure to bear on the Islamic republic in the United Nations.

Washington suspects that Iran’s stated aim of developing peaceful nuclear energy is a cover for a nuclear weapons program. Iran denies this.

Completion of the Bushehr nuclear plant by Russia has been subject to repeated delays, blamed by Moscow on technical difficulties.

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