Iran-Gas
British author and broadcaster Roger Howard suggested Thursday that Western Europe should be investing in Iran's gas industry instead of heeding to the threat of US sanctions.
"Iranian natural resources could play just as important a strategic role for the EU as they did for Britain in the wake of the great discovery a century ago" of oil, Howards said.
"Their size and location remain the key: Iran's deposits of natural gas are reckoned to be second only to Russia's, and could be fed into western Europe through an extension of the existing Tabriz- Ankara pipeline," he argued.
The writer on international relations said the great irony is that Iran is the "one country that could counter the influence of another of Washington's great rivals."
He said scarcely could there be a better reminder that in foreign affairs, it is always dangerous to unnecessarily take too
confrontational an approach.
Next week, Howard is publishing his latest book Oil Hunters to mark the centenary of the world's first oil being discovered in Iran on May 26, 1908.
In an article for the Guardian newspaper Thursday, he referred to the current oil crisis of record prices and supply shortages coinciding with the monumental anniversary.
"The EU can be forgiven if they are haunted by a particular nightmare - the accidental, or deliberate, disruption to the flow of gas from their single largest supplier, Russia," said the author, who specializes in defence and energy issues in the Middle East.
"A century on, Iran's natural resources could also play another lead part in western Europe's quest for energy security - but this time against another threat. Russia is the source of about 40 percent of the EU's natural gas imports," he suggested.
The author also said it was not just gas that Iran has to offer, already being Opec's second largest oil exporter, and could export much more if it had the foreign investment that US sanctions have blocked.
"How paradoxical that, as the price of a barrel touches Dlrs 130, George Bush is urging Opec to increase its output at the same time that his hawkish line on Iran is impeding it," he said.
