A Japanese delegation arrived in Tehran Monday for two days of meetings with Iranian officials, state radio said, in what are the first-ever high-level direct energy talks between the two nations.
The delegation, linked to Tokyo's powerful Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI), is to meet Oil Minister Bijan Namdar-Zanganeh and central bank chief Mohsen Nourbakhsh, it said.
Embassy officials refused to give further details on the delegation, which is reportedly being led by Hirobumi Kawano, the head of Japan's Natural Resources and Energy Agency, which is linked to MITI.
Japan, the world's number two consumer of oil behind the United States, gets more than 80 percent of its oil from the Middle East.
In February it lost a 40-year oil concession in Saudi Arabia after reportedly refusing to fund a railway project in the kingdom. – (AFP)
© Agence France Presse 2000
© 2000 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
