Iranian President calls for OPEC unity to prevent US from pressuring members

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has urged members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to unite and consistently prevent the United States from pressuring any of them.

"The OPEC members should act in a way so that their measures do not harm another member. I believe that if the OPEC members act unitedly and consistently, the United States will not be able to sanction and place one of them under pressure," Pezeshkian said during a meeting with OPEC secretary-general Haitham Al Ghais in Iran's capital Tehran.

A statement from his office said during the meeting, Pezeshkian emphasised the "great" importance of arriving at a common language, attitude and policy of OPEC members, calling for efforts to keep the organisation away from politicisation.

For his part, Al Ghais praised Iran for its "constructive" role in the organisation, noting that as a founding member, the country has always played a "positive" role in OPEC, Xinhua news agency reported. Al Ghais said OPEC has always sought to enhance cooperation among its members to guarantee their collective interests, highlighting the great importance of such collaboration.

On Wednesday 5 February, Iran's first vice-president Mohammad Reza Aref had said meeting and negotiating with US President Donald Trump, though not "impossible", is not on Iran's agenda at the moment, the country's official news agency IRNA reported.

Noting that Iran's strategies, especially in the defence sector, are "stable and permanent", Aref told reporters on the sidelines of a cabinet meeting that under the fatwa, an Iranian religious decree, using nuclear technology for unpeaceful activities is prohibited.

Iranian foreign minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi also said on the sidelines of the cabinet meeting that the "maximum pressure" campaign against Tehran that the United States just restored will fail again, according to IRNA. "Regarding the remarks made by the US President last night, I maintain that the 'maximum pressure' has been a defeated experience, and retesting it will lead to another defeat," Araghchi said.

"If the main issue is that Iran should not pursue nuclear weapons, this is achievable and not a difficult matter," he said. Iran is a committed member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its positions are completely clear in that regard, he said.

Also on Wednesday, Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran president Mohammad Eslami said Iran has no plan to develop nuclear weapons, and will not pursue such a plan in future, IRNA reported. Iran's "peaceful" nuclear programme is being implemented within the framework of the regulations of the safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NPT, Eslami said.