BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

21/05/2007

Belarus welcomes Iran's leader, agrees oil deal

MINSK - Ex-Soviet Belarus, angry at energy price hikes from neighbouring Russia, has clinched a deal with Iran on extracting oil from the Islamic Republic's southern Jofeir deposit, President Alexander Lukashenko said on Monday.

Lukashenko, accused in the West of crushing human rights, said he and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad shared views on major foreign policy issues, mainly in opposing a "unipolar world" dominated by a single country like the United States.

Barred from the United States and European Union countries on suspicion of rigging his re-election last year, Lukashenko expressed his gratitude to Ahmadinejad, whose country has been hit by United Nations sanctions over its nuclear programme.

"You said that in the near future we would be able to extract oil in Iran," Lukashenko said.

"You took moves to meet Belarus's wishes and offered us this deposit as we had hoped. Our experts have inspected it and today we are ready to extract oil in Iran."

The president gave no details of when the project could begin or what volumes it might entail.

Belarus's economy was jolted in the New Year after Russia doubled gas prices and removed preferential oil tariffs.

Lukashenko has called for Belarus to diversify its energy sources and boosted ties with both Iran and Venezuela, whose leftist president Hugo Chavez, also at odds with Washington, received a warm welcome last year in Minsk.

Industry analysts say Belarus may find it difficult to fund large exploration projects abroad, and even if the landlocked state manages to find new resources it is unlikely to reduce its heavy dependence on Russian oil and gas.

Lukashenko said he believed Iran, accused by Washington of trying to use its nuclear programme to build weapons, had adopted foreign policy stances "in tune with our view of a just world order".

"We believe that you have to create a balance of forces and equilibriums in the world. We are against a unipolar world and specific countries imposing their influence on others," he said.

Belarus last year defended Iran's right to pursue its nuclear programme and rejected any notion of Western sanctions.

The United States had accused Lukashenko of maintaining too close a relationship with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before his overthrow in 2003 and suspects Minsk of illegally providing him with weapons.

Source:

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2007/May/theworld_May590.xml§ion=theworld&col=