Azerbaijan, Baku, July 2/Trend M. Moezzi/
Iran's OPEC representative lamented some nations' attempts to make the world's petroleum markets political a day after Iran called on the oil cartel to hold an emergency session over low oil prices.
Mohammad Ali Khatibi's comments to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) coincided with the start of a new round of sanctions against Iran.
July 1 marks the beginning of the European Union's ban on purchasing Iran's oil. The European companies, who insure almost all of the world's oil tankers, will also stop insuring those vessels carrying Iranian oil.
Khatibi's comments closely followed those made yesterday by Iran's Oil Minister Rostam Ghasemi. Both men pinned the lower oil prices on OPEC members, who don't obey production quotas and create disorder in the supply and demand market. At their last meeting, OPEC member pledged to follow production quotas.
OPEC's production ceiling is 30 million barrels a day but that had climbed to 33 million barrels before the June 14 meeting.
It seemed logical, that if members followed their promise not to over produce, prices and the market would act more rationally.
Iran has previously pointed to Saudi Arabia and its two allies, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as the biggest violators of OPEC's production ceiling and the primary cause of lower global oil prices.
The three countries' overproduction helps make up for the oil Iran exported to countries that now embargo it.