Rouhani calls for Iran-Venezuela cooperation to help stabilise crude prices

 Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a meeting with Venezuelan Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez in Tehran on Saturday underlined the need for cooperation between Tehran and Caracas to help stabilize the crude prices in the global markets in a bid to prevent instability of international economy.
"The sudden fluctuations in oil prices (negatively) influence the stability of the global market and hence we should try to maintain balance in oil prices," the Iranian president said during the meeting.
He further pointed to the status quo of Iran-Venezuela relations, and said, "Tehran and Caracas should always stand beside each other and they should help each other to prevent the enemies from harming their national interest."
President Rouhani reiterated that Iran and Venezuela should boost their economic cooperation, and said, "We will be looking for broadening bilateral ties, specially in economic areas."
The Venezuelan foreign minister, for his part, said that his country will be beside Iran on all international areas.
Earlier today, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh underlined that the members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) are determined to reverse the trend of the falling market prices.
"It is important that the OPEC members are feeling the necessity for strengthening cooperation to restructure the current situation in the market and it is OPEC's responsibility to adopt proper action in this regard," Zanganeh said after meeting the Venezuelan foreign minister in Tehran.
Referring to the 166th meeting of OPEC due to be held on November 27, he said, "It is important that all OPEC members narrow down the gaps in their ideas during their bilateral and multilateral consultations."
In relevant remarks in September, Zanganeh called on the OPEC members to make joint efforts to keep oil prices from falling further.
“Given the (ongoing) downward trend of the oil prices, the OPEC members should make efforts to offset their production to keep the prices from further instability,” Zanganeh said.
OPEC is an international organization and economic cartel whose mission is to coordinate the policies of the oil-producing countries. The goal is to secure a steady income to the member states and to collude in influencing world oil prices through economic means.
OPEC is an intergovernmental organization that was created at the Baghdad Conference on 10–14 September 1960, by Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Later it was joined by nine more governments: Libya, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Indonesia, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Angola, and Gabon. OPEC was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland before moving to Vienna, Austria, on September 1, 1965.