PARIS, June 28, (Agencies): Total joined on Monday a growing list of oil companies that have stopped gasoline sales to Iran amid a US drive to isolate Tehran and international efforts to curb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
“Total has suspended its sales of gasoline or refined products to Iran,” a Total spokesman said, declining to say if the French oil major’s decision was linked to the approval by the US Congress of tough new unilateral sanctions that could hurt US companies doing business with Tehran.
The US House of Representatives and the Senate passed a bill last week that penalises firms supplying Iran with gasoline as well as international banking institutions that do business with key Iranian banks or the Revolutionary Guards, and sent it to President Barack Obama for signing into law.
Iran said on Monday it intended to punish the West for imposing new sanctions by delaying talks on its nuclear plans and warned inspections of its ships in connection with the programme could provoke retaliation.
Global suppliers of gasoline to Iran could face bans on access to the US banking system, property transactions and foreign exchange in the United States. Iran depends on gasoline imports because it has insufficient refining capacity.
Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Reliance Industries , and independent Swiss trader Glencore, are among suppliers that have already either stopped fuel sales to Iran or have made a decision not to enter into new trading agreements with the world’s fifth largest oil exporter.
Earlier on Monday, Spain’s largest oil company Repsol said it had pulled out of a contract it won with Royal Dutch Shell to develop part of the South Pars gas field in Iran, a spokesman said.
A spokesman for Shell declined to confirm whether the company will stay to develop phases 13 and 14 of the South Pars project, but noted that Shell will comply with any international trade restrictions which are placed on Iran.
Asked whether Total was still in negotiations with Tehran to take part in South Pars phase 11, Total’s spokesman said: “Total has always expressed interest in the South Pars 11 project but given current conditions the group has not moved ahead with it.”
Freeze
In the financial sector, the central bank of the United Arab Emirates has told financial institutions in the Gulf Arab country to freeze 41 Iran-linked accounts, a UAE daily reported on Monday.
Last week an Emirati newspaper reported that the seven-member United Arab Emirates federation was “tightening the noose” on companies the UN Security Council suspects act as fronts for supplies to Iran’s disputed nuclear programme.
The Islamic state and the UAE have close economic and historic relations. Tens of thousands of Iranians live and work in trade hub Dubai and elsewhere in the UAE, many of them involved in the multi-billion-dollar, re-export trade to Iran.
With Iran facing growing Western pressure, its ties with Dubai have drawn scrutiny from the United States, which is spearheading a drive to isolate Tehran over nuclear activity the West fears is aimed at developing bombs. Iran denies the charge.
The UAE is an ally of Washington, but Dubai’s economy partly depends on trade with nearby countries such as Iran.
Iran has been circumventing restrictions on goods blacklisted by sanctions and much of the trade goes via the UAE, said Middle East analyst Gala Riani of IHS Global Insight.
The Security Council has imposed four rounds of sanctions on Iran since 2006 over its refusal to halt sensitive uranium enrichment and open up to UN nuclear inspections. The United States and European Union have adopted extra punitive measures.
“The UAE, and Dubai especially, has come under a lot of pressure...to tighten restrictions and controls on Iranian firms,” Riani said. They are now “signalling that they are playing ball with the international community”, she said.
The Abu Dhabi banking source said the central bank order was issued on Sunday and it listed 40 entities and one individual named in the June 9 UN resolution, which expanded a UN blacklist of firms whose assets worldwide are to be frozen for assisting Iran’s nuclear or missile programmes.
“You are required to freeze any accounts deposits and stop any remittances in the names of the (companies or persons) designated as being involved in the Iranian nuclear or ballistic missile activities,” the source quoted the bank as saying.
He was confirming a June 21 report in the Emirates Business daily. The central bank was not available for comment.
Reserves
Iran increased its foreign currency reserves by $9 billion by selling gold and through foreign exchange transactions, its central bank chief said on Monday, state broadcaster IRIB reported.
Mahmoud Bahmani did not disclose the total amount of Iran’s reserves, nor did he specify how much gold was sold or over what time period.
“The country’s foreign exchange reserves have been increased by $9 billion through selling gold and foreign exchange conversion,” IRIB reported him as saying at a breakfast meeting at Tehran’s chamber of commerce.
Earlier this month Bahmani denied a newspaper report that the central bank was selling 45 billion euros from reserves to buy dollars and gold.
That would have marked a reversal of Iran’s policy of moving away from the dollar, both in its reserves and in the currency it receives for its oil exports. Bahmani called the report “sheer lies”.
Iran also does not usually disclose the value of its reserves, though state television reported last December they exceeded $80 billion.
On inflation, Bahmani said government plans to start phasing out subsidies for staple items like food and fuel from September would have an impact.
In May the official inflation rate dropped to 9.9 percent. “If it were not for the subsidy reform issue, we planned to drop the inflation rate to below 7 percent by the end of summer and to 4-5 percent by next year,” he said.
He did not give an estimate for the inflationary impact of the subsidy reform which analysts say could mean big price rises for key goods — something which could pose a major political problem for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Warfare
Iran on Monday accused the US Central Intelligence Agency of waging psychological warfare against it through “fake reports,” saying the CIA knows Tehran’s nuclear programme has no military aims.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast dismissed CIA director Leon Panetta’s comments that Iran could have nuclear weapons ready to use by as early as 2012.
“Such remarks fall within the framework of psychological warfare aimed at creating a negative perception about Iran’s peaceful nuclear activities,” Mehmanparast told state news agency IRNA.
“The American officials, especially their intelligence apparatus, know that Iran’s nuclear programme is in no way a military one but is aimed at peaceful purposes,” he said.
“Those who bring up such fake reports seek to deflect world public opinion from the main concern... the nuclear arsenals of several countries and a certain regime,” he said in apparent reference to Iran’s arch-foe Israel.
Speaking on ABC network’s “This Week” programme, Panetta on Sunday said that Iran has manufactured enough low-enriched uranium for two atomic weapons.
He said Tehran would need a year to enrich it fully to produce a bomb, and that it would take “another year to develop the kind of weapon delivery system in order to make that viable.”
“There is a continuing debate right now about whether or not they ought to proceed with a bomb. But they clearly are developing their nuclear capability and that raises concerns,” Panetta said.
Western powers led by Washington suspect that Iran is masking a weapons drive under what Tehran says is a civilian atomic programme.

Talks
The UN chief on Monday called for more talks on Iran’s atomic program, saying new sanctions against Tehran have not shut the door to a diplomatic resolution of its nuclear standoff with the West.
“Even with the Security Council’s resolution adopted on other sanctions, the door is still open for a negotiated settlement,” Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told reporters.
Ban was responding to a question about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s announcement that Iran is ready to resume talks on its nuclear program but wants to delay them for several weeks to punish the West for imposing new sanctions.
Ahmadinejad said Iran would be prepared to return to talks only by the second half of the Muslim festival of Ramadan — in late August. “It’s a punishment to teach them a lesson to know how to have a dialogue with nations,” he said.

Ban said he discussed Iran with top European Union officials on the sidelines of the summit of leaders of the Group of 20 club of big developed and developing nations in Canada. He called for Iran and the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany to resume negotiations.
“I will continue to urge the leaders of the world, the concerned parties to continue their negotiations for an eventual resolution of this issue,” he said.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Sunday that a CIA warning that Iran has enough uranium to build two atomic bombs was “worrying,” and criticised Tehran’s secrecy over its nuclear program.
“This information has to be checked but such information is always worrying and all the more so because the international community does not recognise the Iranian nuclear program as transparent,” he told reporters.
Earlier, US spy chief Leon Panetta had said the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) believes Iran now has enough low-enriched uranium to produce two nuclear weapons if it finds a way to further enrich it.
Russia has traditionally been an ally of Iran, but Medvedev has expressed increasing public concern over its nuclear program, which Washington and other Western capitals fear is on course to build a nuclear weapon.
Despite complaints from the West, Russia is helping build Iran’s first nuclear power plant in the southern city of Bushehr. In 2008 Russian energy giant Gazprom signed an agreement with Iran to develop its oil and gas fields.