<http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/01/news/putin.php> Russia considers cooperating with Iran to sell natural gas By Steven Lee Myers Thursday, February 1, 2007 MOSCOW
Even as the United States intensified its efforts to isolate Iran, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia would consider OPEC- like cooperation with Iran on sales of natural gas. He stopped short of endorsing price fixing, however, saying he was concerned only with ensuring stable supplies for consuming nations.
Putin reiterated Russia's opposition to Iran's acquiring nuclear weapons, but his remarks underscored a widening rift between Russia and the United States over how to deal with Iranian intransigence in the face of the mild sanctions, imposed by the UN Security Council in December.
"We think that the people of Iran should have access to modern technologies, including nuclear ones," Putin said, "but that they should choose a variant that will guarantee Iran access to nuclear energy" while complying with its commitment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty not to build weapons.
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was quoted by news agencies last week as saying that Russia and Iran could establish "an organization of gas cooperation like OPEC."
Putin responded by calling it "an interesting idea." He went on to say that Russia opposed creating a price-setting cartel — something that European and other countries fear — but that "to coordinate our activities would be worthwhile with an eye to the solution of the main goal of unconditionally and securely supplying the main consumers of energy resources."
Putin's remarks came during his annual winter news conference, an affair that offers journalists an exhaustive, unconstrained opportunity to press him on the issues of the day. He answered 66 questions over the course of three and a half hours, largely without the rancor or prickly defensiveness that has characterized previous sessions.
In the realm of foreign affairs, he denied that Russia had used its natural resources as a political tool. He expressed new opposition to the expansion of NATO, though mildly. And he criticized U.S. negotiations to construct components of a national missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, even as he confidently said Russia now possessed missiles to thwart such defenses.
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On Iran, Russia has held out for a negotiated compromise, a position at odds with U.S. efforts to turn Iran's leaders into political and economic pariahs.
Putin's senior aide, Igor Ivanov, visited Iran last week and discussed the nuclear issue, as well as potential energy cooperation with Iran, which has reserves of natural gas second only to Russia's. Putin said he hoped the visit would "remove any suspicions on the international community about Iran's alleged plans to build nuclear weapons."
Putin also endorsed an idea floated last week by the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, to suspend UN sanctions if Iran agreed to a suspension of uranium enrichment.
Putin recently visited Algeria, another major producer of natural gas, where he oversaw the signing of a cooperation agreement between the two countries' gas giants, Gazprom and Sonatrach. He is to visit Qatar, another important gas producer, next week.
Christopher Weafer, chief strategist of Alfa Bank in Moscow, said in a written note that Putin appeared less interested in creating a new OPEC to dominate energy markets than in using closer cooperation with other producers to "turn Russia from an 'energy threat' to some sort of 'energy mediator'" in the eyes of Europe and other countries.
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>