Russian companies are ready to supply fuel to energy-hungry Iran, despite unilateral U.S. and European Union sanctions targeting Iran's oil and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said Wednesday.
Russian companies are ready to supply fuel to energy-hungry
Iran
,
despite unilateral
U.S.
and
European Union sanctions targeting
Iran
's oil
and gas sectors, the Russian energy minister said Wednesday.
The pledge came amid a period of tension between
Russia
and
Iran
unprecedented in the last two decades, compounded this week by President Dmitry
Medvedev's statement that
Tehran
was
nearing the potential to build an atomic bomb.
"Russian companies are prepared to deliver oil products to
Iran
. The
possibility of delivering oil products to
Iran
exists, if there is a commercial interest," said Russian Energy Minister
Sergei Shmatko.
Russia
has
already expressed its dissatisfaction with the sanction measures agreed last
month by the
U.S.
and
the EU to punish
Iran
for
its defiance in the nuclear standoff.
These go beyond the new United Nations sanctions that were agreed by
Russia
and
other world powers which mainly target military-related industries.
"Sanctions cannot hinder us," Shmatko said after a meeting in
Moscow
with
Iranian Oil Minister Massoud Mir Kazemi, quoted by Russian news agencies.
The two ministers also signed a joint declaration boosting co-operation in
energy that envisages
Russia
and
Iran
creating a "roadmap" to plan out their future oil and gas
co-operation.
The declaration says that the two sides will also consider the creation of a
joint bank to finance oil and gas projects as well as the founding of other
joint energy ventures.
Iran
,
which holds about 10% of the world's oil reserves, is the world's
fourth-biggest oil exporter and the second-largest producer in the oil cartel
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries after
Saudi
Arabia
.
However, a lack of refining capacity and inefficiency problems means
Iran
has
to import vast volumes of petrol from a variety of sources in order to satisfy
domestic demand.
According to Russian news agencies, Mir Kazemi declared that sanctions
"will in no way have an effect on the economic and industrial development
of
Iran
. Independent
countries are truly co-operating with
Iran
."
Russia
has
been seen as a close political and economic ally of the Islamic Republic, but
Medvedev's recent hardening of the Russian line on the Iranian nuclear drive
has irritated
Iran
.
His comment that
Iran
was
nearing nuclear weapons capacity prompted an angry reaction from Iranian
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, who rejected the remarks as "totally
false."
The sanctions signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama effectively shut
U.S.
markets to any firms that provide
Iran
with
refined petroleum products.
EU leaders have agreed sanctions banning new investment, technical assistance
and technology transfers to
Iran
's gas
and oil industries. The details are to be approved at a meeting of EU foreign
ministers on July 26.
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