The plane carrying Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad could not land in Armenia today due to bad weather conditions and returned to Iran's Marand city, "IRNA" reported today. Ahmadinejad was scheduled to arrive at an Armenian border town today for the inauguration of a newly constructed pipeline that will transfer Iranian gas to Armenia. The 110km pipeline, 70km of which is within Iranian territory, is 40km from the Armenian border to the city of Kajaran. Test operations on the project have been conducted. The project is to be delivered to Armenia within the next few months. The pipeline is estimated to cost $33 million. Under the first stage of the project, Iran is to deliver up to 400 million cubic meters (14 billion cubic feet) of gas a year; when the pipeline is completed and extends to the capital, Yerevan, the volume could rise to 2.5 billion cubic meters (88 billion cubic feet) a year.
