Iran would consider using oil as a weapon to force the United States to pressure Israel into withdrawing from Palestinian territory, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said Tuesday.
Responding at a news conference to a proposal floated by Iraq Monday, Kharazi said the use of Arab oil to turn the screws on the US and Israel would depend on a collective decision by Islamic countries.
"If they decide to use oil as a weapon certainly Iran will consider it. It will be effective if all Muslim countries would take such a decision," he said on the sidelines of an Organisation of the Islamic Conference meeting on terrorism.
Iraq's ruling Baath party on Monday called on Arab countries to use their oil power against Israel and the United States to ensure the liberation of Palestinian land.
"Use oil as a weapon in the battle ... otherwise it will become a burden which will lead to (more) humiliation," the party's national command said in a statement.
Arab oil producers, who account for half of world supplies, have not used the oil card since the 1973 crisis, despite repeated calls by Iraq and others to do so.
The statement branded the United States "an enemy and a partner of Zionism," and alleged that the Israeli military offensive in the Palestinian territories "was mounted in joint agreement with the American administration."
Washington dismissed Baghdad's call as "random musings".
Deputy State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said the idea was not being taken seriously in the Arab world.
"I just don't have anything on random musings from the Iraqi regime," Reeker told reporters when asked about Iraq's call. "I don't think the Arab world takes that seriously," he added.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, who is also attending the OIC conference in Kuala Lumpur told reporters: "It is up to the Arab oil producing countries.
"But in general terms the Arab world has the right to coordinate their policies and efforts to stand by their brothers to defend themselves.
"The Israeli threat is not only designed against the Palestinian people but against the whole Arab world."
The Minister of Justice and Human Rights of Southeast Asian oil producer Indonesia, Yusril Ihza Mahendra, said however he believed it was "quite impossible" to use oil as a weapon.
"It is quite difficult now. Oil is not so easy to be used as a weapon," the representative of the world's most populous Muslim nation told reporters.
"A lot of other countries like South America and China are also producing oil as well as other countries outside OPEC.
"Competition among these countries is quite high. Also it is not easy to reach consensus in OPEC about oil prices. What more the use of oil as a weapon? I think it is quite impossible."
(Xinhua News Agency April 2, 2002)
