US Consensus-Building Ability at Lowest Ebb: Iran’s President

The US ability to build consensus in the world stays at the lowest ever level, President Rouhani said at a meeting with Venezuela’s ministers of oil and foreign affairs, held in Tehran on Wednesday.

In the current situation, all NAM members should join hands to help the movement play a more active role in regional and international developments, he added.

“Today’s world conditions make it necessary for independent countries, NAM members in particular, to rely on their own nations and act more unitedly in the face of unilateralism, extremism and violence,” President Rouhani stressed.

He further pointed to an agreement on oil output cut made at a 2016 meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in Algeria, calling on all crude producers, OPEC members and others, to push for a “stable and fair” price for both producers and consumers.

The president then touched on Iran and Venezuela’s common views on many international issues, saying both independent nations have a foreign policy of resisting unilateral approaches in the world.

For her part, Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Delcy Rodriguez relayed a written message from the Latin American country’s president, voicing Caracas’s determination to deepen ties with Tehran in all fields.

She also stressed the need for fully implementing the OPEC agreement for balance and stability in the oil market.

The OPEC members agreed in November 2016 to reduce output by around 1.2 million bpd from January 2017, a move that bolstered crude prices.

Iran was exempted from the cut, being allowed to boost production slightly from its October level - a victory for Tehran, which has long argued it needs to regain market share lost under sanctions.