Iranian Firm Denies News of Syria Presence

Iran’s largest energy construction company, Mapna Group, has dismissed a recent report by Reuters news agency, which claimed that the company’s presence in Syria in the past decade was in line with an alleged Iranian project to build an economic empire in the Arab country.

Mapna issued a statement on Sunday, without directly mentioning Reuters’ report that was published a day earlier, saying the claims raised in the report were "ambiguous and in some cases incorrect".

The company said that it had finished three phases of a large power plant in Syria’s Latakia and was nearly completing a fourth and final phase when the project was halted due to the fall of the Syrian government in December last year.

It rejected claims that the projects executed by the group in Syria lacked transparency, especially with regard to funding issues, saying that the projects had been based on official contracts signed within the legal frameworks of the two countries.

Mapna said Syria, under its former government, had completely settled the payments owed to Mapna for projects that were completed, adding that partial payments were also made for projects that were being executed before the December events unfolded.

The company also rejected claims that it had used underqualified workers and contractors from both Iran and Syria in its projects in the Arab country, saying its policy was always to hire from the Syrian workforce and to transfer the expertise and technical know-how to the local people.

It said that Mapna had entered the Syrian market in 2008, three years before the war started in the Arab country, adding that projects executed by the group were responsible for more than 50% of Syria’s electricity supply.  - Press TV