Iranian President Mohammad Khatami arrived here on Tuesday for a three-day state visit, the first by an Iranian president ever to Nigeria.

After being greeted by Nigerian Foreign Minister Olu Adeniji at the Abuja international airport, Khatami and his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo immediately went into the first round of bilateral talks in Presidential Villa. Electricity generation and mining are among the issues discussed between them.

Earlier, Iranian Ambassador to Nigeria Javad Torkabadi told reporters that both Iran and Nigeria would examine areas of mutual interest.

"My country (Iran) has the ability to produce abundant electricity from the turbines and currently generates 38,000 megawatts," said Iranian ambassador.

"Our target is to generate 124,000 megawatts by 2010 since we have the nuclear resources. So discussing that area could be useful to us," he added.

In the area of mining, Torkabadi said Iran was interested in tapping from Nigeria's vast potentials in that area.

"Nigeria is very rich in all manners of mining potentials and we have the resources and desire to exploit these resources. So that will form part of the agenda," he said.

The ambassador also listed other areas of possible cooperation that includes politics, industry and tourism.

According to him, the discussions will be a follow-up to earlier discussions between the Iranian leader and Obasanjo who visited Iran last year.

Khatami, who is leading a 25-man delegation to Nigeria, was accompanied by his ministers of foreign affairs, commerce and health as well as top Iranian businessmen.

Source: Xinhua