THE Guyana Government yesterday reiterated that the offer by Iran to help this country more accurately identify its mineral resources is not confined to the search for any particular ore or mineral.
Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon, stressed the point amid suggestions in reports by the Reuters and Associated Press news agencies from their local correspondents that the Iranian offer is linked to a search for uranium deposits in Guyana. Uranium is used in nuclear reactors and some Western countries are opposed to Iran’s development of its nuclear programme which it says is for peaceful purposes, like providing electricity.
Luncheon told a press conference at the Office of the President complex that the terms and conditions under which the support from Iran has been offered did not seek to identify any particular ore or mineral.
He said the local geological service unit that previously did comprehensive geological surveys for the state using modern technologies suffered from financing and did not grow to meet the needs of large and medium scale gold and diamond miners.
Luncheon noted that in the absence of an aggressive geological mapping programme, Guyana has been relying more on venture capitalists who concentrated on specific territory.
“The Iranians have offered to close that gap” in the mapping, he said, adding that their specialists will be working all over Guyana with the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) to fashion a plan to do the geological surveys needed to identify the locations and size of mineral and ore deposits.
President Bharrat Jagdeo, after returning from a visit to Iran last month, said that country had agreed to deploy its world class geo-scientific techniques to help Guyana accurately map its mineral wealth deposits.
An Iranian mission is due here soon to begin working with the GGMC on the project, he told a press conference.
The President noted that because Iran is in a very active earthquake region, it had developed world class geo sciences labs and was using the same science employed to predict earthquakes to map mineral potential and resources.
Guyana has long lacked this capability and because of the absence of data on its mineral resources, it had relied on investors to seek prospecting licences and then develop a project in a “hit and miss way”, he said.
The Iran offer, the President said, opened new vistas and he disclosed that GGMC head, Mr. William Woolford, was excited about the prospects.
The Guyana Government on Thursday strongly deplored a misleading report under the headline `Guyana opposition slams Iran uranium deal’ by the Reuters news agency issued on Wednesday by Neil Marks, its Guyana correspondent.
In a statement, it said the report surprisingly did not mention the press release it issued on January 27 correcting the grossly misleading report released by the Associated Press (AP) and which was carried in some local newspapers.
“The Reuters report came almost one week after the erroneous AP item and was based solely on speculation offered by Mr. Raphael Trotman, leader of the small opposition Alliance For Change (AFC) political party”, the government said.
“The Guyana Government abhors the position taken by Reuters to totally base an item on the comment of the leader of a small political party and completely ignore the facts contained in the statement issued by the government after the identical inaccuracies were carried in an AP report, and a response from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of February 3, 2010, which was requested and acknowledged by the Reuters correspondent in Guyana.
“Such reporting breaches the traditional high standards of fairness and accuracy associated with dispatches by Reuters and border on sensationalism”, the statement said.
The Guyana Government said it sees this as part of the recent ploy by local correspondents for foreign media agencies to deliberately distort news stories to give sensational angles that may make them more saleable for overseas media.