Iran’s Pres­i­dent Ay­a­tol­lah Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi has told Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley that his coun­try is ready to ex­change ex­pe­ri­ences in oil and gas ex­plo­ration with T&T, while prais­ing what he deemed the in­de­pen­dence of Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries against “op­pres­sion of im­pe­ri­al­ist coun­tries”.

Dr Row­ley met with the Iran­ian pres­i­dent on Mon­day at the Sixth Sum­mit of the Gas Ex­port­ing Coun­tries in Do­ha, Qatar.

“The Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic of Iran has al­ways sup­port­ed the free­dom-seek­ing and in­de­pen­dence-seek­ing de­mands of all the na­tions of the world against the op­pres­sion of im­pe­ri­al­ist coun­tries,” Raisi told Dr Row­ley, ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle pub­lished by the of­fi­cial web­site of the Iran­ian gov­ern­ment.

It said the pres­i­dent ex­pressed Iran’s in­ter­est in ex­pand­ing re­la­tions with Trinidad and To­ba­go, es­pe­cial­ly in the field of ex­ploita­tion of oil and gas re­sources.

The Pres­i­dent added, “At a time when the en­e­my want­ed to shut down Iran’s oil in­dus­try by im­pos­ing sanc­tions and pres­sure, the Min­istry of Oil and Iran­ian oil and gas sec­tor ac­tors were able to achieve a high lev­el of tech­ni­cal knowl­edge and ca­pa­bil­i­ties de­spite the en­e­my’s wish­es, which re­sults in the growth of our coun­try’s oil and gas in­dus­try.”

He said the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic stands ready to ex­change its ex­pe­ri­ences with Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic of Iran, es­pe­cial­ly dur­ing the 13th gov­ern­ment, has a spe­cial pro­gramme to ex­pand eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal re­la­tions and in­ter­ac­tions with all coun­tries, in­clud­ing Latin Amer­i­ca. In this re­gard, we are in­ter­est­ed in im­prov­ing the lev­el of our re­la­tions with your coun­try,” Raisi said.

The ar­ti­cle re­ferred to the re­marks by Dr Row­ley about T&T’s tech­ni­cal and trade in­ter­ac­tions and co­op­er­a­tion be­ing af­fect­ed by US sanc­tions against oth­er Latin Amer­i­can coun­tries.

“This is ev­i­dence of US op­pres­sion and im­pe­ri­al­ism, which in­cludes coun­tries with whom they have nor­mal re­la­tions with,” Raisi said.

It goes on to quote Dr Row­ley as say­ing that “Trinidad and To­ba­go seeks to ex­pand its co­op­er­a­tion and re­la­tions with the Is­lam­ic Re­pub­lic of Iran, like Venezuela and Cu­ba.”

“We are in­ter­est­ed in ben­e­fit­ing from Iran’s ex­pe­ri­ence and ca­pa­bil­i­ties in the field of oil and gas,” the ar­ti­cle added.

Dr Row­ley was due to host a news con­fer­ence on his re­turn from Qatar yes­ter­day but was the Of­fice the Prime Min­is­ter an­nounced that his flight was de­layed “in­def­i­nite­ly” in St Lu­cia.

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