Although Egypt expressed strong interest in the project, a long procedure which involved going through many authorities was necessary before the project could be presented to the Prime Minister, and the proposal was ultimately deemed unfit. The Palestinian National Authority, although interested in the project, did not have the financial capacity to meet the Interim Council's criteria. For political reasons, Israel could not provide a site accessible to all scientists. Additionally, Israel was already heavily involved in the ESRF laboratory at Grenoble, and were contractually bound to provide considerable funds. Furthermore, biologists did not see how they would benefit from SESAME since they already had access to other laboratories across the world. Armenia offered to host SESAME in their building Synchrotron Laboratory at Erevan since their accelerator was outdated. Their proposal was strengthened with the backing of wealthy Iraqi-born Armenian-American businessman Kevork Hovnanian. However, it was later realized that several alterations to the building were necessary to make it a viable site for SESAME. Iran, considered a rogue state at the time, though interested in the project, could not guarantee access to scientists from all countries, and so the proposal was ultimately unsuccessful.