VIENNA: OPEC chief Abdullah El-Badri spoke out against looming new sanctions against cartel member Iran on Wednesday at the start of a two-day oil conference in Vienna.
"I don't want to see any of my member countries under embargo," El-Badri told oil representatives and ministers, as the European Union prepares to impose a July 1 oil embargo on Iran over its controversial nuclear drive.
"I am really against this 100 percent," he added.
"Iran is a founder member, it has a great ability to produce oil", the OPEC secretary-general also told journalists later.
"So I hope that this embargo will be lifted somehow, by discussion and by peaceful solutions."
Western countries and Israel believe Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb under cover of its civilian programme but Tehran insists its purpose is merely peaceful.
The United States and ally Israel the sole if undeclared nuclear weapons state in the Middle East have even threatened military strikes against the Islamic Republic if diplomacy fails.
Iran, OPEC's second-biggest oil producer, is already under four sets of sanctions from the United Nations Security Council.
New talks with the so-called P5+1 powers the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France, plus Germany are set for June 18-19 in Moscow after previous attempts in Istanbul and Baghdad achieved little.
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