New U.S. Law Doesn’t Stop Turkey-Iran Energy Deal
Iran and Turkey on Monday struck a natural gas supply deal worth $23 billion, just a week after a new U.S. law penalizing foreign investment in Iran’s energy sector was enacted.
Iran will start supplying Turkey with 105 billion cubic feet of natural gas a year in 1999, rising to 350 billion in 2005, Iran First Vice President Hassan Habibi said at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan in Tehran.
In Washington, a State Department official said the deal “sends the wrong message” to Tehran, but he hedged on whether the agreement will prompt U.S. sanctions against Turkey under the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act.
“Our general reaction is that we believe that this deal’s conclusion sends the wrong message to Iran,” State Department deputy spokesman Glynn Davies told reporters.
Davies said that despite Washington’s concerns, the United States and Turkey--a NATO ally--have strong ties, and “we certainly don’t expect that this will cause a major rift in our relationship.”
The value of the deal, Tehran’s largest natural gas export project to date, is $23 billion over 23 years, said Akbar Torkan, Iran’s roads and transport minister.
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