Iran Agrees to Ship Gas to Soviets : Pact Marks First Thawing of Relations Since 1979 Revolution

Iran announced today that it will resume natural gas deliveries to the Soviet Union after a seven-year suspension, the first major agreement with its superpower neighbor since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Nicosia, said that under the pact with Moscow, Iran will supply the Soviets with an estimated 105 million cubic feet of gas a day later this year.

The agency did not give a date for resumption of deliveries or say how much the Soviets will pay. It said the volume would be increased to about 3 billion cubic feet a day by 1990.

Gas exports are vital to Iran’s economy, battered by the country’s 6-year-old war with Iraq, which costs $7 billion a year by official Iranian estimates. The declining price of oil, another crucial Iranian export, also has damaged the Iranian economy.

Mediator Role Sought

The announcement of the new deal coincides with a major effort by Tehran to improve relations with the Soviets, the main arms supplier to Iraq. Likewise, Moscow has been interested in improving relations with Iran to increase its influence in the Persian Gulf region and play a role as a mediator in the war.

Iranian Oil Minister Gholamreza Aghazadeh was in Moscow last week to negotiate the resumption of gas deliveries, cut off by Iran after the Islamic revolution of 1979 that toppled Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. At that time, deliveries totaled about 1.8 billion cubic feet a year.

Relations already strained by the the 1979 revolution worsened in 1984 when the Tehran government expelled 16 Soviets on charges of spying and cracked down on the pro-Moscow Tudeh Party.

The Soviet Union, Iran’s northern neighbor, had been an important transit point for Iranian natural gas exports. Natural gas was transmitted through a 690-mile pipeline to the Soviet Union and from there to Europe.

Exports to the East

The Soviets use much of the gas for export to Eastern Bloc countries that depend on subsidized supplies from Moscow.

Before Aghazadeh’s talks in Moscow, Iran and Turkey had agreed to build a 1,187.5-mile pipeline that would carry Iranian gas to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Iskenderun and from there by sea to Europe.

The $4.3-billion project is scheduled for completion within four years, with Iran paying more than half the cost. Turkey will pay for the rest. It was not immediately clear how much the gas deal with the Soviets will affect the Iranian-Turkish project.