MP: China Planning to Finance Completion of Khoda Afarin Dam in Northwestern Iran

“A delegation comprised of members of the Iranian parliament and energy technicians will leave Tehran for China on Monday for negotiations with the Chinese company over the finance deal by the Chinese side,” Habib Boroumand said on Friday.

Highlighting the significance of the watershed network of the dam in development of the region and the country, he said, “After completion and putting to use of this project thousands of new job opportunities in the region will be created.”

Khoda Afarin Dam is an earth-fill embankment dam on the Aras River straddling the border between Iran and Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It is located 8 km West of Khomarloo in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran and 14 km Southwest of Soltanlı in Hadrut Province, Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. It is located 1 km upstream of the Khoda Afarin Bridges. The purpose of the dam is hydroelectric power generation and irrigation. It was conceived as a joint project with the Soviet Union and both sides reached an agreement in October 1977.

Designs were finalized in 1982, revised in the early 1990s and construction began in 1999. The dam was complete and began to impound water in 2008. It was inaugurated in 2010. The irrigation works are still underway. During construction, several Bronze Age sites were discovered, including the grave of a Saka-Scythian warrior. The reservoir filling, or impoundment, was delayed in 2008 to accommodate excavations. The dam’s power plant has an installed capacity of 102 MW and is designed to irrigate 75,000 ha.