Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif who arrived in Baku on Thursday for a trilateral meeting with Russian and Azerbaijani counterparts, said in an interview with Russia-24 that due to sanctions against Iran, the United States has stolen the Islamic Republic’s share in the global oil market.
“Iran is fully determined to retain its proper position in the oil market,” he stressed.
“At the moment, Iran has returned [to the oil market] and we are hoping that other producers will also arrive at this conclusion,” he told the Russian state-owned news channel.
“In my opinion, Russia has shown that it understands Iran’s special conditions after the removal of sanctions,” he added, referring to Russia’s support for Iran’s exclusion from the output freeze at January levels – an agreement that was reached between the world’s top OPEC and non-OPEC exporters aimed at tackling a growing oversupply and helping prices recover from their lowest in over a decade.
Currently, Russia, Oman and Nigeria have officially backed Iran’s exclusion from the output freeze, although some Arab countries are pushing for Iran to join the initiative.
“We hope that all OPEC and non-OPEC exporters will also take this fact [about Iran’s special conditions] into consideration,” said Zarif.
To support the global oil market, OPEC and non-OPEC producers will meet in the Qatari capital Doha on April 17 to hold talks on a deal to freeze output at January levels. Iran says the country will not abandon its share in the oil market since the sanctions had prevented Iran from gaining its full share of the market while some countries raised their output and caused the drop in oil prices.
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