Ahmadinejad Snubs Workshop, Huddles with Eesti Energia Chiefs

Invited to attend a DIY nuclear warhead workshop in Tallinn, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was reportedly met at the airport by a private motorcade and "whisked away" for closed-door meetings with Eesti Energia executives.

"We're disappointed," said a member of the NGO who had originally invited the controversial Iranian head of state to Tallinn. "We assumed that Ahmadinejad's schedule would be filled out later by other meetings with officials, such as from the Centre Party, but we didn't think that he would be essentially kidnapped by state oil shale company executives for the entire day. It was not part of the plan for him to be whisked away."

A director of a NGO group on Tallinn's west side also involved in the workshop, The Old World Will Soon Be Gone, took pains to note that the point of the workshop was to explore clean use of weapons-grade nuclear energy -- harnessing the potential represented by the world's 3,000-some nuclear warheads "for peaceful purposes".

The circumstances of Ahmadinejad's meetings with Eesti Energia were hushed, but the motorcade was said to visit Eesti Energia's new oil plant where construction is set to start soon, and an oil shale enrichment facility in Ida-Viru County.

Eesti Energia had not returned calls from our staff, but a energy council adviser from the Academy of Sciences, who asked not to be named, said the company was exploring a project of mutual benefit to both sides and that Ahmadinejad would also be "briefed exhaustively on Estonia's e-solutions". "It's just something that has to happen," said the adviser. "All visitors to Estonia endure at least 30 minutes of it, and the leader of a rogue state is no different."

- Single Sourcer Herald Tribune