TEHRAN (AFP)--Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Friday made an unannounced visit to an Iranian province badly hit by gas cuts in the coldest weather in years, vowing to do all he could to restore supplies.
Ahmadinejad was visiting the northern Mazandaran province "to look into the problems arising from the recent unprecedented cold, including gas supply cuts in certain regions," the official IRNA news agency reported
IRNA said the central and eastern parts of Mazandaran had been suffering fuel shortages over the past 10 days after Turkmenistan unexpectedly completely halted its gas exports to Tehran.
"It is not tolerable for us if people are upset for a single minute and we have to do our best," Ahmadinejad told state television, promising full gas supplies would be restored by Tuesday. "I have to look closely to make important decisions for basic solutions."
Ahmadinejad met in the Mazandaran provincial capital Sari with his oil and commerce ministers, as well as the governors of the Gilan, Golestan and Semnan provinces which have also been hit by the cold snap.
Schools and government offices in northern Iran were closed for several days earlier this week, in what officials said was precautionary measure to prevent gas pressure falling too low.
Ahmadinejad was elected on a platform of restoring economic justice to the worst-off in Iran but his critics have accused the government of hurting the poor with its expansionary economic policies.
Iran has also halted its own gas exports to Turkey, the only major importer of Iranian gas, for the second winter in two years in order to cope with the shortages at home.
Iranian officials assured Ankara supplies will be restored as soon as possible, but the Web site of state-run English language Press-TV quoted a deputy oil minister as saying the flow remains halted.
"While the pipeline is in good condition, cold weather has caused a drop in gas pressure, which makes delivery virtually impossible," Deputy Oil Minister for international affairs Hossein Noqrehkar Shirazi was quoted as saying.
Iran, with the second largest gas reserves in the world after Russia, has major hopes for its nascent gas export industry but progress is being stymied by a lack on foreign investment in gas fields.