“In a face-to-face meeting with the president, Ahmadinejad announced that he would not attend the next OPEC meeting,” Shojaoddin Bazargani, a top official at the oil ministry, said on state television’s website.
“One of his cabinet ministers will attend the meeting,” Bazargani said.
Ahmadinejad announced in mid-May that he has taken control of Iran’s most-strategic sector for an interim period after dismissing former oil minister Masoud Mirkazemi under a cabinet streamlining plan.
The decision gave rise to speculation that Ahmadinejad would chair the next meeting of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in Vienna on June 8.
Iran, OPEC’s second biggest crude producer, currently holds the rotating presidency of the oil cartel for the first time since its 1979 Islamic revolution.
