EU, Iran to boost cooperation on energy issues

Iran and the EU have opened a joint office in Tehran to boost cooperation on oil and energy issues, the official IRNA news agency reported yesterday.

The energy office, inaugurated in the Iranian capital on Saturday, will help the Islamic republic develop non-nuclear energy technologies and is backed by 1.7 million euros in EU funds.

The opening comes ahead of a conference here Sunday between Iran and the EU that will gather major firms from the oil and gas sectors, as Tehran and Brussels strengthen ties despite Iran's stand-off with the US.

The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, when Washington broke off ties several months after Islamic radicals took staff at the US embassy here hostage.

Tehran and the EU are also holding longer term talks on business issues and human rights, as well as the politically sensitive question of Israel, which the Islamic republic does not recognise.

The EU called on Iran last month to recognize the Jewish state, which Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called a "cancerous tumor." But Iran said it could accept a "two-state solution" if Israel and the Palestinians agree to such a deal.