FM Spokesman: West Incapable Of Removing Iran From World Energy List

Tehran, Jan 3, IRNA – Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said West is incapable of omitting Iran from world’s energy equations. The spokesman made the remark in his weekly press briefing on Tuesday in reference to the remarks of some western officials about oil sanctions against Iran. He said the situation in the world today in terms of energy resources could not afford losing Iran as a country which possesses world’s fourth biggest oil and second gas resources. He said everything indicates that sanctions will harm the countries imposing them more than the country receiving them. He reminded that at present the minimum amount of Iran’s gas and oil is exported to European countries. According to the spokesman, a delegation by the International Atomic Energy Agency will soon visit Iran upon Tehran’s invitation. The visit will take place as part of Iran’s routine cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog to prove Iran’s goodwill and commitment to the principle of transparency, he added. Asked to comment on rumors that an ally of Iraq’s Ayad Alawi is coming to Iran to lobby about the Iraqi vice-president Tariq Al-Hashimi, he said that exchange of visits between the officials of the two countries was natural. He said Iran believed the Iraqi officials were quite capable of running their own affairs. On Iran-Britain relations, he said the two countries had not cut ties but there were no embassy activities between them presently. He stressed that it was Iran’s principle policy to cooperate with all world countries except the US - which has not manifested any change in its hostile attitudes against Iran yet – and of course the Zionist regime which Tehran does not recognize as a state./end