China Nonferrous Metal Industry’s Foreign Engineering and Construction Company will co-build an alumina plant in Iran with annual capacity of 200,000 tons, it said in a company filing on Thursday.

Despite chummy embraces and warm words, the leaders of Russia and France could not agree on one of the diplomatic world’s most pressing questions, whether or not Iran’s nuclear program would remain peaceful.

After the collapse of Soviet Union, new countries have emerged in a geography that extends from the Baltic region in the west, through the Pacific Ocean in the East.