Oil minister: Iran against politicizing energy issues

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qassemi deplored the US and other western states for imposing sanctions on Iran's energy sector, and said Tehran is against politicizing energy issues. Qassemi made the remarks on Wednesday during an international conference, which was hosted by the Munich Security Conference Foundation (MSC) and the F.A.Z. Forum in the German city of Frankfurt to discuss 'energy security'. The event was participated by leading politicians, business executives and scientists to discuss the economic, environmental and security policy issues surrounding energy security in the 21st century. Qassemi criticized US-engineered sanctions against Iran, stressing that anti-Iran bans “disrupt the cycle of energy security.” "We are strongly against politicizing the energy issue and (we) are critical of the performance of main consumer countries which use the energy issue as a tool to achieve their political ends," the Iranian minister said. Last year, the Islamic Republic invested more than $30bln in the energy sector despite the anti-Iran bans, he noted. Washington and its Western allies accuse Iran of trying to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear program, while they have never presented any corroborative evidence to substantiate their allegations. Iran denies the charges and insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. Tehran stresses that the country has always pursued a civilian path to provide power to the growing number of Iranian population, whose fossil fuel would eventually run dry. Despite the rules enshrined in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) entitling every member state, including Iran, to the right of uranium enrichment, Tehran is now under four rounds of UN Security Council sanctions and the western embargos for turning down west's calls to give up its right of uranium enrichment. Tehran has dismissed west's demands as politically tainted and illogical, stressing that sanctions and pressures merely consolidate Iranians' national resolve to continue the path. Tehran has repeatedly said that it considers its nuclear case closed as it has come clean of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)'s questions and suspicions about its past nuclear activities.