According to the newspaper, Tajik Prime Minister Oqil Oqilov sent a letter to his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, saying that Tajikistan was creating a consortium on the completion of the $3 billion hydropower station, with the assistance of the World Bank, and that the Central Asian state requested that Russia resume its participation in the project.
A source in the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Russian electricity export-import operator Inter RAO UES could take over the Rogun contract, replacing Russia's aluminum giant RusAl.
The UES's chief executive, Anatoly Chubais, confirmed the plans but said that the sides had not reached any agreement on the issue.
"They do not offer us anything in the letter, it does not contain the conditions for our participation," a high-ranking source in the ministry said.
Russia halted the construction of the hydropower plant in September last year after Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed a resolution unilaterally annulling a cooperation agreement, signed in October 2004, with Russia's RusAl.
The Tajik leader said RusAl had not paid for the construction, and said that Tajikistan would build the hydro facility on its own. Russia's RusAl, which was to acquire a 51% stake in the project, denied the claims.
The construction of the Rogun plant, whose design capacity is 3,600 MW, was started in 1976, but frozen after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1994, the hydropower station was damaged in a flood.
