Romanian and Iranian leaders 'agree on Gulf oil platform dispute'

Aug 24, 2006, 18:20 GMT

Bucharest - Romanian and Iranian presidents Traian Basescu and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad agreed Thursday that their countries' dispute over a Romanian drilling platform in the Gulf was purely of a legal and economic nature, the Romanian president's office said.

The office said Ahmedinajad had assured Basescu in a telephone conversation that there was no question of Iranian military action against Romania.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Assefi had made a similar statement Wednesday, telling Khabar news network that the issue was a dispute between Iranian and Romanian companies.

A spokesman for the platform's Romanian operator GSP Grup said Tuesday that Iranian troops had occupied the platform and contacts with more than 20 employees on the platform had been disrupted.

Assefi said Iranian police had prevented materials belonging to the platform from being transferred as long as the ongoing legal dispute was not settled.

The background to the incident was an ongoing dispute dating from April over drilling rights with Iranian oil companies Petroiran and Oriental Oil Kish, Radu Petrescu said.