‘UN sanctions won’t hit Iran oil sector’

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Vienna, Mar 15: Iran’s oil minister insisted on Thursday that tougher United Nations sanctions would fail to choke development of Iran’s oil and gas industry.

US, British, French, German, Russian and Chinese diplomats at the United Nations have reached a tentative deal on imposing fresh sanctions on Iran and hope to introduce the measure at the Security Council on Thursday, providing their governments agree.

Iranian oil minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh brushed off reporters’ suggestions that Iran’s energy industry would suffer as a result. Opec member Iran is the world’s fourth biggest oil exporter and has the world’s second biggest gas reserves.

“For the past 25 years we have witnessed unilateral sanctions by the United States but have developed our oil industry with the help of internal resources and the help of other countries,” Hamaneh told reporters.

“We have been able to maintain our production. We don’t have any worry about that.”

The text of the deal, obtained by Reuters, includes a ban on Iranian arms exports, an assets freeze on individuals and firms involved in Tehran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and a call to nations and institutions to bar new grants or loans.

It aims to penalise Iran for refusing to suspend uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for use either in nuclear bombs or civilian power stations. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed any new UN sanctions resolution as ‘a torn piece of paper’ that would not stop Tehran’s nuclear work, a local news agency reported.

China, which sits on the UN Security Council, is one of the biggest investors in Iran’s energy sector.